2020 and Things

This past year, my neighbor lost his daughter, a police officer, during a heinous act of domestic gun violence. My other neighbor, who was actively becoming my closest friend, lost his own life in a way that his immediate circle still doesn’t fully understand.

One of the chief personalities inspiring my work dies from Coronavirus in the first days it was announced. My sister overdosed on Valentine’s Day and we had no idea she was even struggling with addiction until a week before.

These people are each gone too soon. Under forty some years or below, half your life expectancy. The one small thing I want every person on the planet to understand is that the most far-reaching tragedy of dying young, regardless of generation, is a fresh face in the casket transcending aesthetics. The shotgun juxtaposition is seeing yourself still breathing. It rearranges your organs a minute at a time.

I am off on a tangent roughly a year since Serena died and I’ve not permitted myself to romanticize her passing at all. It was ugly but I am grateful for the lack of violence because it’s the little things that keep you together.

Miss you guys.