A quiet place to read words someone might leave at the end of a life.
If I go first, do not weep for too long. The time I lived beside you was the happiest part of my life. I want the house to stay warm. Open a window sometimes. Eat. I am not asking you to forget me. I am asking you not to make grief your only room.
I was clumsy with the words I love you. I showed up, and I thought that was the same thing. It was not always enough. You do not have to finish the life I left unfinished. Walk at your own pace. If you are tired, sit down. I am proud of you for reasons that have nothing to do with prizes.
You carried food farther than I ever carried worry. I noticed too late how cold your hands were at the station. Thank you for the plain questions, the ones about meals and coats. They held my days together. Please rest. I learned how to boil soup. It is not yours, but I am not hungry.
Do not wear a stiff black tie for me. Our last good hour was a coffee that was too sweet, not a ceremony. Stay alive in the ordinary way. Ask your people how they are before the year gets away from you. That is the friendship I meant to practice better.
I raised my voice first. You closed the door first. I wish I had waited until you finished your sentence. You were not too sensitive. I was in a hurry, and hurry makes other people small. You may forgive me or not. Either way, it was not your fault.
I am putting down a grudge I carried for years. Keeping it only turned my remaining time into a warehouse for your mistake. This is not the same as forgetting. Memory can stay. The punishment can stop. I hope the night you also lived through lets you go.
You do not all have to wear black. Put up one photo where I am laughing, and skip the long speech that makes me wiser than I was. I was impatient. I postponed love. Remember that person, not a statue. Afterward, eat together. Do not send me off hungry.
If I were born again, I would still want to meet you. I would try to be a gentler person the second time. I would say the sentence instead of patting your shoulder and hoping you understood. I would call your name before I called out my worry.
Play one song I loved. Then ask each other whether you have eaten. You do not have to keep my objects forever. A photograph and the name of a street we walked are enough. Grief is not homework. You are allowed to laugh. I will not take that as a betrayal.
We were not a perfect family. Love often arrived dressed as nagging. Still, the name of the place I return to is family. You do not have to resemble one another. Just do not leave a hurting person alone in a room. What I leave is not a house. It is an empty chair for anyone who is tired.
Thank you. For the meal, the shared umbrella, the window left lit when I was late. Most of what was bright in my life was someone else's kindness. I treated too much of it as ordinary. I want the last line to lean toward thanks, not shame.
There was a sentence I swallowed in the doorway. If today is heavy, tell me. I called the silence consideration. It was fear. You came home with a face that had endured the day alone, and I talked about the weather. You did not have to endure it alone. My courage was one beat late. That is the whole confession.