Where are you, my brother. In all the geography known to me, you are not of it.
When you died, I would stand at the balcony railing and look out the far windows and see the blinking city lights, and try to grasp that you were not out there, somewhere. You weren’t out beyond the city lights just a drive south. You weren’t there, in your room. That room filled with photos of your daughters and everything labeled and the toy bin in the corner and art drawn on the windows. You were simply: gone.
The room was quickly emptied and a new occupant ushered in. Because: business. Rent needs to be made. Nurses need new patients. The windows were undoubtedly washed. Traces of you erased. My husband helped pack up your belongings ~ all those photos of your precious girls, their art and letters to you. Taken down. Packed away. Painfully. For the man who was: gone.
I have texts from you saved in my phone. Sent there by your living, breathing self. Sent forth from one human to another. We: communicated. Yet if I reply now? Oblivion. You are not there. There is no way to reach you. These texts are beloved ghosts.
You once graced the earth. You laughed and smiled and got angry here. How is there now nothingness where once there was you? You’ve vanished from this place. Your body: ashes, scattered ~ reduced to dust. You cannot surprise us with a visit. The earth does not hold you. Your essence….just GONE.
I believe in heaven. But I have not been. I know no one who has been. You occupy a new address, in a realm I have never seen, in a sphere that feels so far. Is the veil between us thinner than humans imagine? Do we dance in similar spaces unaware of one another? Is heaven out there and up? Is it everywhere and new dimensional? Is it beyond the galaxies and inconceivable to my cognition? I don’t know. I trust it’s good. But I don’t know where you are, exactly. Out there. I cannot scream loud enough or listen closely enough to bridge it.
The earth feels emptier.
Originally written a year after your departure.
With love always,
Your sister.
Saltbox Colonial 