Guest submission by Dandelion Asper
You were fourteen, and I was eleven. Now I’m twenty-two, and you’re still fourteen. You’re still standing in the doorway of your house while my mom figures out how to jumpstart our car because I left one of the interior lights on and killed the battery.
I remember lining up in the church to see your body, and when I finally got there, I had no idea what to say. You were wearing a polo shirt with the collar popped; it looked so unnatural on you. I ended up saying, “He looked a lot better when he was alive,” and your mom laughed, hugging me, agreeing through tears.
The day of the funeral we were late; my brother wanted to use the hotel waffle maker, and by the time we got there, even though your mom saved us a seat at the front, the usher wouldn’t let us in. I watched your funeral on a tiny TV in a room of strangers.
Your gravestone has a picture of an iPhone on it; I think it’s one of the clipart images the grave place had. I don’t blame whoever designed it; trying to figure out what to put on a headstone sounds hard. Your dad’s grave has a phone in the same spot; maybe it’s a family joke I’m not in on.
When your younger brother graduated, my mom and I drove up and talked about your older brother’s graduation. I stopped for a moment and thought, “What about you? Why don’t I remember your graduation?” It’s because you never graduated and you’re still 14.
I still tell stories about you even though I know they’ll always end with an awkward silence when people ask who they’re about. I wonder if you’d be okay with me telling them. I still never tell them your name in case you aren’t.
When I visit, I end up sleeping in your room, and the thing that always gets me isn’t the pictures of you; it’s your trombone lying in the closet you’ll never play again.
If it sounds like I’m rambling with no real point, it’s because it doesn’t have a point. Death is pointless. Some people took some lessons from your death; I didn’t. It just left a hole in my life that, even though I’m twice as old now, still hasn’t closed.
Grief is weird. I cried writing this, and my mom asked me what was up. On September 13th, 2026, eleven years since your death, we’re still laughing, telling stories about you. We’d probably be doing that anyway; just now it requires a box of tissues.
