After the funeral, I made arrangements for the bills to come to my office.
Every month, I paid her rent, her electric, even her phone.
At least once a day I would call her number and pretend she might answer it, hear her voice on the answering machine.
At first I left messages, but then I couldn’t.
I’d turned her apartment into a time capsule.
A shrine.
In September I got a letter that her lease was up.
Time to face it.
I needed to move on.
I stood at her door a long time, key poised in my hand.
Advertisements
Everything about this is just fantastic. For that idea of change, of how to deal with the loss of that connection; that is the hardest part. Well done.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Reblogged this on walking rhetoric.
LikeLiked by 1 person
What a great piece!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Time to let go.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Another funeral one, Josh.
I like the way we do not know who she is – a friend, a relative, a lover. And that our narrator is unreliable in his mind, his sense of duty, his sense of guilt. Perhaps.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A strong story of how some of us deal with grief. A time comes when all there is is to move on. Nicely Done J
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well expressed of what many of us experience!
LikeLiked by 1 person
The ending…wow. Smacked me round the face and hit hard. This is deep.
LikeLike