Letters to the Dead

1| To the Boy Across the Street

To the boy across the street,

I had no idea who you were. I would catch glimpses of you when you were coming home from school or driving back from work. According to my mom, you were around my age when you died.

I had no clue you died. I just noticed one day you stopped walking home. The flowers in your front lawn that you dedicated an insane amount of time to, died. I think I was too wrapped up in my own grief to notice that the boy across the street was dead.

And sadly, I think the only reason I'm writing this letter to you is because my dad and siblings died on the same day as you. The difference is you were murdered in a random mugging and my family died in a fiery car crash.

Our moms talk.

They cry over coffee in the mornings and bond over the fact that they are both widows who have lost their children. Ironically, I'm learning more about you when you're dead than I ever have when you were alive.

For example, I now know your name is Dave.

You loved art, soccer, and gardening.

You were depressed and attending weekly therapy sessions to deal with your PTSD from your dad.

You and I would have been great friends Dave. Which is what I need right now.

A friend.

To be truthful, I'm afraid my grief is going to swallow me whole, and I'm just going to be an empty shell for the rest of my life. In my entire lifespan, I've lost 18 people. Each death is like a shank to the heart. The pain comes back again, and again, and again, and again. I've pushed everyone close to me away because I am truly afraid that I'm going to lose them.

Or worse, lose myself.

I found myself asking, how many funerals can I possibly attend before I reach a certain age?

At first, I started at 16. I had lost one set of grandparents back to back and my favorite teacher to cancer. I asked myself, 'How many more funerals can I attend before the age of 17?'

I think when I asked myself that I cursed myself. After that, the deaths wouldn't stop. It seemed every year was plagued by death.

Right after my teacher died, 5 of my classmates died in a shooting. When I was 17, I lost my two best friends Reece and Greyson to suicide. Their deaths were a little spaced out—giving me time to breathe before I was suffocated again.

At 18, I lost my other grandmother, aunt, cousin, and dog. We didn't have a funeral for Buster the cocker spaniel...

Then at 19, I've lost my father, both sisters, brother, and my grandfather on my dad's side. Their deaths hurt the most.

I'm 19, and to answer the question— how many funerals can I possibly attend before I turn 19?

19.

It feels like I tell myself I'm okay after the last death and I truly convince myself that I am. Then, a new death occurs and I'm left gasping for air and wishing it was me instead.

My grief consumes me while I watch as others around me fall apart. I feel their pain. I try to help them—I do help them—but in helping them, I slowly start losing myself. I'm practically a lifeboat with a hole that somehow manages to make it to the shore but drowns as people step to get off. The water sinks me slowly till I feel nothing and I'm just left drowning in the vast darkness of the sea.

Death is the knife that caused the wound in me, and grief is the water that filled it.

One day, I dream of a life where there isn't death and grief...but in that life, I'm dead.

Dying is easy, but living with death is not,
Adeline.