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May 30, 2019

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It's a strange sensation - that of death crossing your path.

I honestly don't think it can be summed up in singular words. I can't just call it chilling, because I'm boiling with rage. I'd never call it sad because the word has lost its meaning to wilted flowers and sappy, tragic love stories on the Oxygen network. I could call it catastrophic, but even that word is overused in this fucked up reality - what with genocides and humanitarian crises across the globe. There's just nothing that compares to being toe to toe with Death. There's nothing like it at all. 

Maybe the closest I've come to figuring out a word for this sensation is unpredictable. I wake up each morning and I don't know. I just really haven't got even the most remote idea of what the day will look and feel like. Right now, for instance, I just got back from visit Dominic at Harmony. It's the end of the school year and today was Water Play Day. He was having so much fun on the slip 'n' slide. And I was happy. Now I'm writing this from my desk. I have the browser cut down to half the size of the monitor, and Susan's smiling face is looking back at me from my desktop image. 

And right now, in this moment, I am overcome with sorrow. My sister is dead. I won't get to hear her bubbly voice again. She won't hug my son. And I'm angry. And I'm selfish. And I know it.

---

I went by Susan's grave on May 25. I went early and alone. I was on my way to the tattoo shop, but I needed to be here first. 

I sat down in the sand and grass next to her grave and told her I love her, I miss her, and I was going to get her name tattooed on me in a matter of minutes. While I was sitting there, I had strange sensation again. Death. It's seared into my soul. And now that I feel it, I'll never not feel it. 

That's part of the poetic beauty of getting her name tattooed into my skin. Now that I have it, I'll never not have it. 

And I'll never be the same again. 


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