I’m going to try to write a bit today, but I’m having a bit of conflict.  I want to write a short story concerning someone who has passed a year ago this month.  I don’t have regrets or guilt or spite, nothing but love and mourning, but knowing that he’s not around and believing it are two different things.

I talked to my mom yesterday.  She knows someone with the same terminal illness and was asking me questions about the signs of departure.  I was glad it was a phone call.  I thought she was being callous at first, but as I thought about it, I don’t think she knew how close this man and I were. In the eight years I knew him, I had adopted him as a paternal figure and loved him as unconditionally as he loved me.  Of course she didn’t know.  I couldn’t tell her that.  She is very close to her friend who will die soon, and she just wanted to know how to prepare herself, how to make the situation as peaceful as possible.  I’m not angry anymore.

As people who write, we know that writing makes us pry into ourselves, for good or ill.  Am I ready to face this?  It would be inevitable if I chose him as subject matter.  Do I want to stop knowing and believe?  Even now as I write this, just alluding to him…

I think I need to postpone my memorial story.

Another day, then.