Four years ago, almost to the minute, I spoke to you for the last time. Where do I organize that in my heart and mind, and body? Four years. One thousand four hundred and sixty days.
You are visiting me in my dreams though I only feel it when I wake; I don't remember. I wake exhausted like I've been moving all night. What are we doing? Maybe I'm just chasing you, trying to bring you home.
It's been a while since I remember having a conversation in a dream. Do you remember me asking you to stay? "No," you said, "I can't." How many of those dreams did I have early on? Why were you always around ten years old in them? Can you come and talk with me again, please?
I'm doing my best to stay upright. By that, I mean I have some agency now about falling into my grief. Right now, I'm standing outside the room housing my grief and looking through the open door as though it's a precipice. I can see myself standing there trying to decide whether or not to walk in.
But I also see myself inside the room, sitting in the kitchen, and you're just on the other end of the phone. We're making plans for your future. Everything is going to be okay.
Except it's not. You are my buddy, yet I don't know you're in trouble.
I didn't know, but I felt it. I sensed it and hesitated. I had a warning and didn't believe it. So maybe this is what's waiting for me in the room—all the ways I failed you.
Grief is a curious and complex thing. I sense the horror awaiting me if I step into my grief. Still, I want to walk inside my grief room and fall prey to the pain. I want to suffer.
Perhaps agony closes the ever-widening time gap, and you're not so far away.