day 15,032: that day

You were born in a snowstorm in Blacksburg, VA. You lived 15,372 days and passed away one year ago today, a few hours into your 15,373rd day on Earth. There are a lot of things no one will ever know about those hours. I know it snowed in Fairbanks, AK, that day. I have a slow-motion video that a friend took and sent to me because it was just so striking, and she knows I appreciate those sorts of things. The first time I watched it (it really was magic), I didn’t know the news yet.

Things separate, over time, as more happens. Before that day. After that day. Before I knew. After I knew.

Today, some of us who loved you and love you still got together on a cool, beautiful spring day in Seattle. We laughed about you and reminisced

about you and stayed mostly in the sweet and not in the bitter. I wish you could have known more, enjoyed more, just how fiercely you are loved and admired and the source of both amazement and bewilderment. Not the least because of how soon you departed. But heightened by that fact.

I don’t even know what to imagine you would have to say about today. Something witty and blunt and obnoxious, especially for its truth. Something like, “Sounds like a party; sucks I was dead!”

Obnoxious.

Especially for all its truth.