More family calculus

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More family calculus

I don’t want to imagine a world that he isn’t part of – not at all – but there is no world that they both are alive in, and no way my mind can accommodate a version of that world, even imaginary. So, if I imagine her here, I imagine him not. And it’s impossible not to wonder at times like these. Mundane, silly times where I’m frustrated that we can’t agree and my mind slips off into that world-that-might-have-been. And more serious times, birthdays, milestones, all the rest. What would it have been like if she were here? Then he wouldn’t be.

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Rubble

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Rubble

Block by block these 6 million minutes have piled up around me. Some I have deliberately moved and sorted and arranged, compiling them into something I can live with and in, a story I can tell about what happened to us and how we carried on. Some blocks stay strewn around, rubble, minutes I could do nothing with or in but cry and rage, when there was no sense to be made.

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Absent presence

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Absent presence

I used to worry about the days somewhere far in the future when I might not think of her every hour, or even every day. I used to think that when those days arrived it would mean I had failed her, had forgotten her, had left her trapped in some kind of terrible limbo, neglected, lost for real. It’s not like that, though, and I wish I could’ve known that all those years ago. Someone probably told me. I know I didn’t believe them.

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