I like to think that Aaron still attends our family gatherings. That he laughs at the stories and jesting comments. That he leans up against the wall and watches us interact with each other, especially those that have bonded as a result of his passing.
"These were the lovely bones that had grown around my absence. The connections -- sometimes tenuous, sometimes made at great cost, but often magnificent -- that happened after I was gone. And I began to see things in a way that let me hold the world without me in it. The events that my death wrought were merely the bones of a body that would become whole at some unpredictable time in the future. The price of what I came to see as this miraculous body had been my life." - Alice Sebold, The Lovely Bones
I don't have to be religious or spiritual to feel his presence. Because even in his absence, he continues to bring people together. And that is proof enough to me that Aaron still with me.
