If you were here, you’d probably tell me that what I’m doing is stupid. Sitting here, talking to someone who isn’t. Well, you’ve known me long enough to occasionally cut me some slack, and if ever I needed you, now’s the time.

Maybe it’s my being here that’s the stupid part – it’s not as if I’m talking to your headstone or anything. I mean, I’m talking to a bench. How freaky is that? God knows what anyone who saw me would think. It’s not as if this is even where your ashes are. I admit, I did think of trying to mix your ashes into a chocolate milkshake in order to get your soul back with me, but somehow sending what’s left of you through my digestive tract seemed rather… well. Besides, if it somehow did work and your soul ended up trapped inside my body… I love you, but I think we’d both go rather crazy.

But then, I’m talking to a bench – who am I to judge?

I guess I’m here because talking to you always made things easier. You had the knack of reducing a problem to its simplest, and if you couldn’t, then just the fact that you cared to try made me feel better. That and the accompanying hug. Of course, now the problem is something not even you can solve. Not unless you’re Jesus on the side. I really wish you were. I want you back.

I keep telling myself that you’d want me to go out and have fun, but my fun wasn’t the going out but the being with you. I should be grateful I guess, our life together reads like a romance novel. The popstar meets some random guy, next time they kiss, and then there’s the first date and the first… rocking of my world. The band split because of love, though to your credit it wasn’t yours for me – I’d hate to have been the cause of that whole fiasco. We went on holiday together a few weeks after – nothing fancy, just to Wales. Sitting on that deserted beach as the sun went down, you reached into your pocket, dropped to a knee and asked…

How could I refuse?

I admit to being scared that it would turn into some sort of farce slash media circus, but it ended up being remarkably perfect. You looked so happy reunited with Tom and Dougie. I still swear Dougie groped me during the best man’s dance with the “bride”, though I admit it does get a bit confusing when there are two best men. I wasn’t quite sure whether I had to dance with my best man as well as yours. I have to say the most comedic moment was watching you dance with my best man – “Dance of the Two Dannys” was the term the guests came up for it. It was definitely unique. Especially when Tom’s daughter tried to join in. Tom called me last week, you know – apparently she just got promoted to chief surgeon at that hospital… where is it… oh, you know the one. The one where Kate gave birth. It scares me even now, the fact that I’m a grandparent. Never really dreamed it possible. Not with another guy anyway. That day in the hospital, the first time I held Kate in my arms… you looked so proud. Almost as if we’d given birth to her ourselves, rather than just having some DNA spliced together. Meant you had no excuse for the bulging tummy anyway. I admit to never really understanding the wish to have kids before. All the sleepless nights, all the worry… But when I held her in my arms, suddenly I knew why. So profound I almost dropped her. Not that I admitted it for years.

Of course the problem of grandkids is that they have three grandfathers, which does get slightly confusing when all of us are together.

In some odd way, the last years were the best. You’d think that the twenties would be the best years of your life, but things with you just kept getting better. Kids grown up and moved out, enough cash that we could both retire. It was almost like we were dating again, only with less rollercoasters and talking. Probably more ice cream. You’d think that at our age, the silence would have been because we’d run out of things to talk about, but it was never that. It was just we could say so much without ever speaking. Just through the touch of your hand to mine. The way you touched me that final… that final…

I’m sorry, I know I should be happy for the time we spent together, but I can’t be. Losing you is the hardest thing I’ve ever had to deal with. I’m not strong, I’m just an old man who’s spent more than fifty years in love with the most wonderful person in the world.

And now you’re gone, and I don’t know if I can live without you.