"memento mori"

(Vol. 10 | Spring 2023 - Cowley Alumni)

When I flew to the Midwest for my annual summer visit, I dreaded the thought of seeing you, and yet I found myself wandering the cemetery, hunting for your grave. When I found your marker, I sat down in the wet grass and continued to weep from guilt and grief.

Guilt for all I could not take back, and grief for a friend who had shown me forgiveness and acceptance like no god could. To honor your memory, I hopped the fence after sundown and brought with me a can of Monster Energy, which is ironic because that’s probably what caused the heart attack, but I refuse to remember you any other way.

But I’m an awful friend and a liar who likes to embellish, and you were reduced to ash, so I’m walking in this cemetery in the middle of the afternoon, dry-eyed and drinking something I cannot stand, and looking for a grave marker that does not exist and a fractured friendship that will never be unburied.