One year gone. So much can change in just one year. But no amount of passing time can bring back what we have lost. Friends. Family. Innocence. All forever taken from us. What are we to do? They say time can heal all wounds. Whoever 'they' are…they lie. Time heals nothing. We have bid our time and one year later our wounds are still as fresh as the day we were injured. Yet here we are.

Time is however, a teacher. Time has taught us resilience. How to be strong, and how to stay that way. Time has taught us to treasure what we have, and to never take a moment given to us for granted. Time has taught us that life is short. Sometimes painfully so. Time has taught us that no matter how hard we strive for immortality, all we have in the end, is time.

Time is a mother, a lover, a teacher, and a friend. It brings us into this world, and helps us to learn and to grow. It lulls us into complacency and holds us in its warm embrace. It carries us through life in long summer afternoons and quick blinks of the eye. Time is a stranger, a punisher, and a bully. Time strips us of our memories, our lives, and all that we hold dear. We go to bed a carefree child and wake up a world weary warrior. We watch our parents grow old, and our friends grow sick, and in the end all those around us slowly die. We age with grace as our ears grow quiet, and our eyes grow dim, and each day it becomes harder and harder to get out of bed until one day we don't, and people say 'it was just their time'.

But who is time, to say that 'it is time'? Is time fate? Destiny? Some unknown deity in charge of our universe? And who, pray tell, invented this 'time'? Who decided that all things living must eventually come to an end, and why is it that some have centuries while others have only moments? It seems to me that time is a fickle thing, ever changing in its rule over man.

I take comfort then that time no longer has a hold over you. You are free to be whatever, wherever, you are. Free from pain, and sorrow, and suffering. Free from the trivial matters of us mere mortals. But time still holds us in its vindicitive grasp. One year later and the pain of loosing you is just as raw as the moment we realized you were gone.

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Do not stand at my grave and weep,

I am not there. I do not sleep.

I am a thousand winds that blow.

I am the diamond glints on snow.

I am the sunlight on ripened grain.

I am the gentle autumn rain.

When you awaken in the morning's hush,

I am the swift uplifting rush,

Of quiet birds in circled flight.

I am the soft stars that shine at night.

Do not stand at my grave and cry;

I am not there. I did not die.

Mary Elizabeth Frye

Kim Tae-hyung

30th December, 1995-2nd June, 2018

'You always shined in times of darkness'

It was cold. And wet. So unlike this time of year should be. The one year anniversary of your passing was just last week and yet...there are days we still expect you to come bounding through the door, that big, goofy, boxy smile plastered on your face.  The world should be full of sunshine and laughter, but it isn't.  It is dreary, and lonely, and grey.  Some days I don't think it can get any worse...and then it does.  Bangtan Sonyeondan is no more.  We agreed to not see each other after everything that went down.  Jin went to work for his fathers company.  Jimin took a job as a choreographer.  Hobi still writes music and...he seems to do okay...  Jungkookah still hasn't woken up.  The doctors say he probably never will.  That's really for the best.  A fate worse than death awaits him if he ever does.  Min Yoongi...was sentenced for his role in your death.  He took his life the night he was to turn himself in.  I'm still not sure how I feel about all that.  A life for a life they say but...Yoongi hyung was my friend...my brother...  It is my fault for missing all the signs.  As a leader and a friend, I failed him most of all.  Now here I sit, staring at a grave that shouldn't exist and wondering where it all went wrong.