Yesterday my friend Kevin would have been 31.

I say would have been because, October 5 of this year marked nine years since he's been gone. That's nine years without his laugh. Nine years without his smile. Nine years of not hearing Jimmy Buffet blasting from his car.

And nine years without my friend and almost brother.

I still miss him as much today as I did that horrible day I found out he was gone. In fact, it took my mind a few days to even wrap around the idea that he had died. I just didn't want to believe it. When I'm at his parents house I still feel like he's going to come walking through the door at any minute. But he's not.

So much has happened in those nine years and each milestone I reach in my life I can't help but think about him. Graduation day from college (he died the October of my senior year, only two months shy of graduating himself.), the day his brother Casey got married to a girl I know he really didn't like and now, as I turn 30, I can't help but wonder where Kev would be in his own life.

He's always with me, don't ask me how I know, I just do. I just miss him. Terribley. And unfortunately the day he died so did a piece of my heart.