You know, we'd just had a birthday, he was... you know, he still

Host: The sun was setting over the quiet harbor, its last light painting the sky in hues of amber and rose. The water shimmered like liquid glass, catching the reflection of the dying day. A soft wind stirred the air, carrying the faint smell of salt and memory.

On a worn bench overlooking the sea, Jack sat hunched forward, his elbows resting on his knees, a small photograph trembling slightly in his hands. The edges were frayed, the colors faded — but the faces in it still glowed with the unbreakable warmth of a moment that time had failed to erase.

Beside him, Jeeny sat quietly, her long coat drawn close, her dark hair moving gently in the breeze. She said nothing at first — she didn’t need to. Grief had its own language, and silence was its mother tongue.

The gulls called overhead, distant and ghostly.

Jeeny: (softly) “Robin Gibb once said, ‘You know, we’d just had a birthday, he was... you know, he still had a future out of him, and all I can say is he was just one of the most beautiful people in the world... a very gifted man, and it’s a loss to the world, not just for us.’”

Host: Her voice carried the weight of remembrance, its tenderness a small act of reverence.

Jack: (nodding slowly) “Yeah. I remember when he said that. About Maurice.”

Jeeny: “About his brother. About loss that feels too big to belong to one family.”

Jack: “That’s the thing, isn’t it? When someone truly bright leaves, the whole world gets darker — not just your part of it.”

Host: He turned the photo slightly in his hands — two men, younger, laughing, their arms around each other. You could see it in their eyes: that kind of love that doesn’t ask to be understood.

Jeeny: “You miss him.”

Jack: (quietly) “Every day. I keep thinking I’ll get used to it, but grief... grief’s like the tide. You think it’s gone, and then it comes back, higher.”

Jeeny: “Because love’s the moon that keeps pulling it in.”

Jack: (smiling faintly) “That’s poetic. Pain shouldn’t sound that beautiful.”

Jeeny: “Maybe that’s the only way it can breathe.”

Host: The wind picked up, whispering through the dry reeds near the shore. Somewhere behind them, a church bell tolled six times — slow, solemn.

Jack: “You know, I still talk to him sometimes. Just... in my head. I tell him about the small things — the way the sky looked this morning, or how the cat won’t leave my porch. I know it sounds stupid.”

Jeeny: “It doesn’t sound stupid. It sounds human.”

Jack: “I keep thinking he’d laugh at me for missing him this much. He used to say, ‘Don’t get sentimental, Jack. It’s not good for your health.’”

Jeeny: “And you’d tell him sentiment’s the only proof we were ever alive.”

Jack: (chuckling softly) “Yeah. I would.”

Host: The waves rolled in, slow and steady, the sound soft as breath. The world felt still — like it was listening.

Jeeny: “What was he like?”

Jack: (after a long pause) “He was... light. Not the kind that blinds you, but the kind that finds its way through cracks. He could make you believe in better days just by walking into the room. He carried music in him — not just songs, but kindness. That’s rare, Jeeny. That kind of gentleness that doesn’t weaken you but reminds you what being human means.”

Jeeny: “Sounds like he made life feel worth living.”

Jack: “He did. That’s what makes it worse. The world loses someone like that, and suddenly everything feels... smaller.”

Jeeny: “Maybe not smaller. Just quieter.”

Jack: “Yeah. Quieter. Like the echo after laughter.”

Host: The light shifted — the sun sinking lower, gold deepening into red. The sky looked like a page someone had set fire to — beautiful and disappearing at once.

Jeeny: “You know, Gibb said it was a loss for the world. I think that’s what grief really is — the world forgetting how to sound right without a certain voice in it.”

Jack: “You think we ever stop feeling that?”

Jeeny: “No. But we learn to carry it like a song we hum when no one’s listening.”

Host: Her words floated out to sea, merging with the hum of the waves, as if the ocean itself understood the dialect of mourning.

Jack: “You know what’s strange? I used to think death ends things. But it doesn’t. It just... rearranges the living. You start carrying the person inside you instead of beside you.”

Jeeny: “And you keep them alive by remembering who they were, not just that they’re gone.”

Jack: “That’s harder than it sounds.”

Jeeny: “Everything real is.”

Host: The first stars began to appear — small, trembling, hopeful lights breaking through the dusk. Jack’s hand relaxed on the photograph. The faces there seemed to glow faintly in the soft reflection of the evening sky.

Jeeny: “You know, I think that’s what Gibb meant when he called him beautiful. Not the face, not the fame — but the presence. Some people are beautiful because they make everyone else better just by being.”

Jack: “And when they go, you feel the absence like missing sunlight.”

Jeeny: “Exactly. But even sunlight travels millions of miles to reach us. Maybe that’s what love does too — keeps traveling long after the source is gone.”

Host: The two sat in silence then, the sound of the tide their only company. The photo rested between them now, and the faint gleam of moonlight kissed its surface.

Jack: “You know, I used to think remembering hurt because it was all I had left. But now I think remembering’s the only way to make sure he’s still here.”

Jeeny: “He is, Jack. Just not in the way you expect.”

Host: He looked at her — her eyes soft, steady, like light that had seen storms and chosen to stay.

Jack: “You’re good at this. At helping people find words for what hurts.”

Jeeny: “I just listen. The pain tells its own story.”

Host: The wind brushed past them again, carrying the faint scent of salt and something older — time, maybe, or eternity dressed as air.

Jeeny: (quietly) “It’s not just the world that loses someone like him. It’s the world that learns how to love differently because of him.”

Jack: (smiling) “Yeah... He taught me that too. That loving someone doesn’t end when they go — it just changes shape.”

Host: The moon broke free of the horizon then, bright and pale over the dark water. Jack stood, slowly, slipping the photograph into his jacket pocket.

For a moment, he and Jeeny stood side by side, their reflections caught in the glassy surface of the sea — two figures, one loss, one light.

Jack: “You think he knows? That I still talk to him?”

Jeeny: (after a pause) “I think he never stopped listening.”

Host: The waves came in and out, soft and rhythmic, like breath. The night had turned colder, but the silence between them was warm — a silence filled not with emptiness, but with memory, with gratitude, with the enduring hum of love that refuses to fade.

Because some people, as Robin Gibb once said, are not just lost to those who loved them —
they’re lost to the world itself.

And yet, through the echoes they leave —
in laughter, in song, in the way the light touches water —
they are never truly gone.

They simply become the sound the heart keeps listening for,
long after the music ends.