How strange to arrive here only to find you mourning at your own grave.
I had meant for this to be today's solitary endeavor, but here you are, bent slightly over the marker that bears your name.
The washed and weathered grey of your hooded sweatshirt hangs in its old soft rumpled way about your familiar hips. Your hair, a little more silvered than when last I saw it, has lost the wooly curl of post-chemo newness and instead has gathered into its old substantial shaggy crop. I know what it will feel like to touch, there, just beyond your temple.
How strange to see you, your back to me as I stride up the walkway carrying sunflowers past Mary with the outstretched arms of iron-robed promises of comfort. How strange.
Your form is that compelling round combination of the apples and pears of anatomical charts; an altogether satisfying fruit unique to you.
How strange that I almost didn't recognize you - you who have hid yourself from me for so long. You who have pretended to disappear behind the magician's curtain of smoke and ash. You who have given a ghost a chance.
Tell me, have you brought the pennies for my eyes?
