I’m too old to start over being young again. Am I the only one going to the funeral? If I’m constantly burdened by my feelings about things that other people can ignore and forget then what does that say about me? I have given up on trying to remember and given up on trying to forget. In the end night will outlive day but right now the sun is shining so I should stop looking at shadows. If everything is an opportunity to learn does cynicism and fear mean I skipped the class?

His face suffered various stages of removal in his death. Hers was the unnerving serenity of unconsciousness, visibly but unknowingly inhaling the stench of chemicals and hot metal. Two boys were screaming and crying in waves of competing fear and pain. But they were screaming. These are facts, not feelings. Am I feeling it when I cry? How about when I feel like I can’t inflate my chest? If it’s there but I’m pushing it away to avoid ruining yet another perfectly good day am I feeling it?

My loss was not gruesome. I grew up knowing my mother as a cancer death and as boxes of stuff tucked away in the basement. I was too young to have my own memories. There was an album of pictures that ends around when she would have started getting sick. I don’t remember her voice or the comfort of her embrace. I don’t know her sense of humour. I don’t know her cooking. My father re-married; I do know life moves on. Well, at least it did until I made myself sick continuing to try to rush past what wouldn’t be left behind. I am not above my needs.

When gratefulness doesn’t overcome depression does that mean I don’t have any? When rationality doesn’t supercede fear does that mean I’m not trying? When there’s pain in a place of privilege does that make me selfish? Why can’t a good memory come along and ruin a bad one? This is no time to be waging a full-on war against habituation. I’m doing my best to touch the hot burner but it hurts and my band-aids were taken away.

I once got a fortune cookie that said ‘face facts with dignity’. It didn’t come with a definition of dignity though. I face my facts every day, I don’t get a choice. It’s not as if I can forget the path here and the way things are now. Dignity is a lot more slippery. You can feel it leave when you use anger to hide or when your eyes tear up in public. It stings when you see that ambulance and it tells you “not anymore”. It tricks you into thinking you can hide from it. I know I can’t. All I can do is pay the price and come out of the shadows with my head held high and hopefully it won’t cost the next person who has to do the same as much.