one month in

Its been a month since our last conversation. I've salvaged bits and pieces of your life from the chaos you left in your passing - small evidence of you in flowered boxes, curling pictures and jaundiced paper - but the wreckage in my heart overwhelms me. Questions echo unanswered. Why did you keep in chronological order the newpaper trail of my classmate's trial and conviction of murder - yet the copy of my first published article archived in a box of urine yellowed bills in the back of your closet? In your last days - why was your independence more precious than a little more time to spend with a daughter who only wanted to make your life a little easier. Did you fight me every moment because you could not bring yourself to simply love me? In these moments I remember your anger - but not your love. Did it hurt your heart to consider that I would be waiting in your future as your voice, your legacy and the only way the world would know you once you left it would be through me? How do I reconcile your truth and mine? I choose to love you.