8,000 Americans dead in 9/11, Iraq and Afghanistan.Don't email me with your "but what about" and "how can you equate--" It's a fact, not a moral reckoning.Every one of them is missed by someone.Every one of them leaves behind a half-person, or perhaps twice a person, as they have to both eat pizza and open presents and smile at work while also carrying the burden of pointless emptiness.You hear his voice in a park, see him just rounding a corner. And every morning before you open your eyes you try to wake yourself up back--But time goes only in one direction. Better than spiraling inwards, towards nothing, as it does for parents who are left marking time after their child has moved on.There's no shame in making him a memory and moving on, but there's not much relief in it either.Hail and farewell.