How many years till I stop hurting?
How many tears can I yet shed?
How many hours spent regretting
all of those words I've left unsaid?

I'll say goodbye my dearest friend.
There's one thing that's always been true,
I was no one till someone loved me
and that someone's forever you.

so I know that I'll be living for you for the rest of my life
and I wish you could stay just one more day but I'm going to try
to find my way to keep you

The memories we keep about them
shine like the stars way up above,
for a life that's known no losses
is a heart that cannot love.


All our grief and all our sorrow
prove that their lives were not a waste.
It means they've made a real difference.
They've left this world a better place.

So we know that we'll be living for you for the rest of our lives
and we wish you could stay just one more day but we're going to try
to find our ways to keep you.

The time we spent together
could not last forever
just a moment till eternity moves on.

These days we've been without you
has connected all who
never thought it'd hurt this much when you were gone.

So we know that we'll be living for you for the rest of our lives
and we wish you could stay just one more day but we're going to try
to find our ways to keep you.

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Thank you to  Koreley  gordon_furryman  ~Midnight and one other person who asked to remain anonymous for contributing their voices to the choir on the project and to  ~Midnight for assisting with the arrangement.

An especially big thank you and a very tight hug goes to everyone in this beautiful community who, despite their many hurts in this terrible time, have come together to make living just a little more bearable.

The biggest thanks of all goes to the two people to whom I will never be able to express my fullest gratitude; my departed friends Lance, without whom I would not be here today, and  forest-wolf /  SpottedSqueak . Their memories serve as my inspiration and a driving force behind my continuing journey to become a better person.

Forest was so always generous with his time and talent. He had a giving nature and a playful spirit, and in a community flooded with brilliant artists Forest was one of the best. He was the kind of person who we all aspire to be, but most of all he was a kindred spirit.

These last few days there has been a sentiment repeated over and over by many of us, myself included. "I didn't really know Forest that well, only his art. I was always too shy to talk to him, and now I'll never have the chance because I only started talking to people in his community after he passed." While I mourn the loss of all the things never said and the moments never shared, I take solace in knowing that Forest was loved in so many ways that he never even knew of. We all felt his loss and it brings us together in ways that we never could have imagined and reminds us to be grateful for those around us. The last, and most important gift that he ever gave to us was each other.

But Forest isn't immortalized by his art or even by memories but by the compassion that he inspires in us all. He isn't truly gone, he can never be gone from this world as long as there are still people who, like him, do what they can to change the world for the better.

He is our Forest, and we are his trees.