March 20th, 2014

The first three years of my twenties were spent living for someone else. The next two were spent in a negotiation between denial and indulgence.The next one was spent in a slow decline into depression.The next two were spent in self flagellation for succumbing to the depression. And the last one, the last one was spent breathing with my lungs alone, cut off from all other sources. The last one was spent shrouded in prayer and healing. Now a new thing is coming but I can't tell what it will be. This morning Frankie came into the classroom. She hasn't been to school for two weeks. I ran to greet her, realizing how much I really had missed her sweet spirit. He died she said. My father is dead. Her face was flat and calm and she deliberately worked her mouth to shape the words. I felt my own face melt into a shape that must have looked familiar to her because then her eyes spilled over with tears and I held her. She told me about his kidney failure, the dialysis, how his body hissed with machine life long after his brain had gone out. She spoke as a woman from far away, as if she had already graduated and moved on with her life, as if it were ten years later and we were just two grown ups speaking of funerals and the unfinished sentences of death. I didn't know what to say, so I walked next to her until her words and tears fell in equal measure.