Place A Flower On My Grave In Winter

Dear K

This is true: from ages seventeen to twenty-three I had a recurring dream. I was driving in the rain somewhere in the suburbs. I drove through an intersection and was hit by a red car. I was thirty years old. Six years, and I dreamt a version of that at least twice a week.

But that's a form of bullshit. A spin on the truth.

I believed in visions and prophecies then, of an afterlife, Elysian Fields and plains unending.

I'm not that person any more. Part of me, a big part of me, still believes in my doom. I'm going to die alone. I'll push everyone away when I know it is coming. I'll wander out alone into the woods like a family dog that knows it is dying.

I feel like I haven't felt anything in a long time. I feel hollow.

Today my Grandfather was diagnosed with liver cancer, we're still waiting on the biopsy to confirm it, but the CAT-Scans left little doubt.

I stood in the hospital room, with my Mother and Sister and family around me, everyone else was fighting back the tears. I could only think about the next six months, when he wastes away. He's already a shell of himself. He is three inches shorter than he should be from back surgery, one Teflon knee and diabetes.

I want to feel the pain, but it isn't coming. It is like forcing yourself to vomit, but your fingers aren't triggering the gag reflex.

This year has been a hard one. I've lost half my grandparents. After one of the funerals, I was sitting on the couch with my sister, and she said to me "I don't know how I am going to get through the rest of these". I think it was then I realised the inevitability of it. Everyone I love is going to die, and all we can do is remember them.

Do you think someone will remember me?

Place A Flower On My Grave In Winter
-K