sweet nothing serenade

There's something I've been avoiding. Rather, I just don't think about it, so why would I write about it? It's this - the boys upstairs are leaving. Ben is going to live in a van, but will still be in town, probably using our shower or toilet or warm couch every now and then. He's got the Into the Wild bug, it seems, and he wants to travel and live out of a van, but hopefully not die from eating poisonous plants. Then there's Sean. Ah, Sean. Scott and I love Sean more than anyone else in this God-forsaken town. Sean is the single best thing about Columbia. He's just a great guy. If I said more about him, it would sound like I was writing his personal ad. He's graduating next month and leaving - moving to Colorado to live with some jackass friend of his.
Did I ever say? - Sean is the first friend we had in Columbia. He lived in the downstairs apartment in the building five feet from ours. He was the first person to be friendly, to invite us over for drinks and smoke. We played "Go Fish" at his table and he gave us a cup he'd made in ceramics. He didn't care that we were married - everyone else treated us like we had a plague, or, more accurately, they probably assumed we didn't need friends because we had one another. But not Sean, he hung out with us anyway. Two years later, we're still neighbors. In fact, he lives upstairs in this old two story brick house. It's been a community house, with Sean and Ben stopping in any old time, borrowing nutmeg, me running upstairs to steal their soy milk. Sean taught Scott most of what he knows about working on bikes. Ben was the first non family member to hold our one day old baby. Sean used to bake loaves of bread and stick one, unwrapped, into our mailbox for us to find when we came home. Ben walked our dog almost every day for a week or two after the baby was born. They have been our family while living here, and I can't believe that they are moving.
Today they got back from a weekend trip and Sean came downstairs to say hi. He brought a bottle of whiskey and a carton of egg nog, and asked to borrow my nutmeg. He mixed me a drink and gave me a hug and said to come upstairs if I wanted to. We share so much in this house - we've cooked so many meals together, and it was us Sean came to when his heart was broken. He took a nap on our couch and all but crawled into my lap to cry. We've been on hikes, camping trips, bike rides. We've had countless barbecues in our front yard together. We've shared drinks, recipes, and stories, and conversations. We've built a garden together, maintained a compost. It's like a marriage, what we have in this house - the married couple downstairs, the two bachelors upstairs, and this bond, and our friendships.
I just can't believe it's coming to an end.