Every year without knowing it / I have passed the day / When the last fires will wave to me / And the silence will set out / Tireless traveler / Like the beam of a lightless star —from “For the Anniversary of My Death” by W. S. Merwin Now, by which I mean the hazy past, I sit at a fancy bar tucked inside a fancy restaurant, my back turned from the windows and the Willamette River. I can’t afford dinner in a place like this, but there’s a generous, two-dollar happy hour and my friendships with the staff mean half of my cocktails and beers and shots are on the house. It’s rather quiet on this particular afternoon, making it easier to consider the two men, not long out of college, each wearing a loosened tie. They consider me in kind, too much so, and their repeated glances suggest they might know me.
Thank you for sharing this with us, Michael. I wish I could have known Valerie.
When my parents and sister come up in conversation, I encounter a similar tension. "You have a sister? Where does she live?" someone might ask. I often say "Oh, she's no longer living," or "she died several years ago," and I feel like I've just placed a heavy weight on the conversation, something I need to alleviate by smiling, in order to reassure my conversational partner. I'm attempting to speak about a reality I'm now familiar with, but it feels like I'm delivering bad news every time it comes up.
Thank you for sharing this with us, Michael. I wish I could have known Valerie.
When my parents and sister come up in conversation, I encounter a similar tension. "You have a sister? Where does she live?" someone might ask. I often say "Oh, she's no longer living," or "she died several years ago," and I feel like I've just placed a heavy weight on the conversation, something I need to alleviate by smiling, in order to reassure my conversational partner. I'm attempting to speak about a reality I'm now familiar with, but it feels like I'm delivering bad news every time it comes up.
Which, in a way, we are.