My sister Patti sent me a throw pillow that she had ordered online featuring Rob photoshopped as the Night King from Game of Thrones (you may remember it from here). Two of my favorite words that ever came out of his mouth (Rob’s, not the Night King’s) are at the bottom: Love You. Patti asked me to text her a photo when I received it just to see out how it turned out.

“Great smile! Hope you give it lots of hugs!” she wrote. “He looks radiantly joyful!”

He does. It’s the best photo of Rob smiling I’ve ever seen, taken last Christmas when he and Zach were at my house. That was the last time Zach ever saw him, and the last time I ever saw that smile.

But now I have it on a commemorative pillow forever! Some days I give him a big hug and kiss. Some days I punch the idiot in his smiley face, and other days I just put my feet up on him so we can comfortably watch TV together. It’s nice to have him back in my living room.

What’s also nice is that I’ve started talking to him again. In the months after his death, I talked to Rob almost every day. I said what’s up and cursed him out and asked him why and told him how much I missed and loved him. I can’t remember exactly when I stopped speaking to him out loud, but it was probably when I moved the Esquire photo upstairs to the bedroom. Thanks to all of this new pillow talk, we’re back to our old chatty selves.

Not coincidentally, Rob has been visiting me in my dreams again. He hadn’t shown up in them for quite a while (Zach, Caryn, Sarah, has he been hanging out with you guys?). He’s always little Robbie in my dreams, and I barely recall most of them other than us being together. A few nights ago, however, we were walking out of a movie theater and both badly needed to go the bathroom. And the only reason I remembered that was that’s what I did when it woke me up in the middle of the night.

In the morning, I jumped out of bed, showered, got dressed and went downstairs to the living room. And there was Rob waiting for me on the couch.

“Dude,” I said, “that was fun last night.”

The Night King just sat there and smiled.