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I dreamed your mother, not your real mother but one I made up for you. If we walked by the ocean I would tell you about it. The glory of your red hair whipping its own waves. I have been choking these days, silently. How many words did we share? So few but somehow I have to say I felt like I knew you. And so I cried that day when he called me to tell me that you had gone. More than I ever had. I keep a picture of you with me, with some fear. Some sadness. Some guilt. I hear him say he is forgetting what your voice sounded like. And it breaks something inside me, like tiny glass animals on a shelf. Now what are ghosts I ask myself? If we burn the flesh and scatter the ash, what remains? He says he still is so in love with you. Christmas was hard this year, he came to the holiday party alone. He’s angry at couples - the happy ones and especially the ones with petty grievances. He got a new job, started seeing a grief counselor. I can’t tell if it’s helping. September already seems so long ago. I’m reading a book on death and dying. Trying to remember to honor this life.
