I'm not really in a place to be celebrating death. I know it's not what today is, but still. When I try, my gills fill with lead, and all I taste is numb. The truth is, I don't miss you any more significantly on the day you died, but on all the days you didn't. I miss you at Christmas and on your cold-mornings birthday. Regret being so stupidly distracted that last Easter, reeling so in the wake of my own trickster nightmares, that I failed to recognize significance. I suppose it's always the case.
I didn't realize I would miss you so much.
That your absence would be so pregnant, still, after years. I understood so little of death at the time.
And I see in myself blossom this wonderful sense of muchness, this wanting so desperately to preserve those who are still small. Yesterday, he looked so fucking tired. And so scared. And so normal, too. How do you keep being yourself when the most important person in your world is dying?
I always loved his smile. He's got a good guy smile, though I suppose you wouldn't remember. I reckon he was still a kid when you saw him last. You should see the way they've all grown, except no, not all. Maybe some good things are best preserved somewhere back in time.
I see around me a vastness of young people growing old quickly and not in the ways they'd hoped.
And that, that I don't know how to talk to. It stumps me far worse than other terrible things. I find myself asking often, do I have enough strength to meet all that is coming? Have I learned enough, did I have time enough?
Some people don't even get this. At least I got some time to fortify the walls before the shit hit the fan. It gives me a better chance than some. But still, I get the feeling I should've eaten a lot more greens for my arms to grow as long and all-encompassing as they now need to be.
In the end, I'm not sorry you didn't live to see all this. I think you've seen enough of dying children. I don't think the last year would've been easy for you, and it wasn't easy on any of us still here, either.
But I suppose there's only so much one person can be expected to take. Today, instead, I can at least be happy you didn't see how so many stories ended before they should've, how so many of the people you loved and worked tirelessly for have suffered.
It wouldn't have been the hardest thing you've ever had to do, but that doesn't mean it wouldn't have hurt. I know that.
There's only so much one can be expected to endure, and you were asked, already, more than most. And I know what happened to you was unfair, but I pray like Hell we somehow manage to break this chain of eerie patterns that seems to rule over our family before we repeat this one.
I hope. And I miss you.
July 28th 2025
