Remains

I don’t like to remember the day you died, but it’s something that haunts my mind sometimes – when things are quiet and the ghosts stir. And even when I’m not thinking about it, it feels like it has somehow settled into the space between my molecules – an ache I can’t name, shaping my reactions even now.

I was so small when you died. The memories come as foggy fragments, waves of shapeless feeling that crash against the edges of me until I give way to the erosion.

I remember my mother pulling my hand as we ran across the gravel to the dam. She was sobbing. My feet were bare, and I could feel the little rocks digging into my skin like vicious biting insects.

I didn’t know where we were going, or why I was hurting. And the memory breaks savagely here. I don’t know if I saw your body – maybe I did, and my mind is doing its best to protect me … shielding me from your pale wet skin and my mother’s weeping.

The day of your wake mom told me we were going to get you, and I felt relief wash over me. I hadn’t understood where you had gone – just that the house felt emptier somehow, and your Lego went untouched … but that didn’t matter, because you were coming home.

The lighting in the funeral home felt stark and yet somehow shadowy – as if the lingering dark might hide the lifelessness of your face. You lay in a box, surrounded by soft cushion, eerily asleep.

I was in someone’s arms – Mom? Maybe one of my older sisters? Whoever it was asked me to give you a kiss, but I couldn’t. You weren’t coming home, whatever was in the box wasn’t you – it was some awful nothing wearing your skin. I remember breaking down, trying to claw my way out of the snare of their grip… and then nothing.

Just nothing.