Trigger Warning: The content may not be suitable for children or those with a fragile psyche

How To Recover From A Loss

You need help recovering from a loss. I do not need help recovering from a loss. I wrote this guide for you. It has nothing to do with me. I am a kind person. This guide is a selfless act.

Rules for recovering from a loss:

1. Do not accept it.

Dream about the one you lost. See them alive again. Say things to them you were too frightened to say before. Sleep often until you can’t tell your dreams and your waking life apart.

2. Do not think.

Your experience is your interpretation of reality and your reality. Drugs alter the way you interpret reality. Television alters the reality you interpret. The more altered your experience is, the less you have to think. It is best to combine drugs and television, so you will never have to think again.

3. Do not talk to anyone.

They have not experienced what you have. They cannot understand.

4. Do not go to the funeral.

5. Do not look at the body.

6. Do not keep any ashes.

7. Do not visit the gravesite.

I hope this guide helps you.

The rain falls dully outside my window. My sister and I used to count the raindrops when we had nothing better to do. We never got  very far.

______________

My sister did not die a month ago. We had an empty funeral. People without heads read eulogies and my thoughts were crisscrossing black lines.

At the apartment, my father and I went to our separate rooms. I drank and watched television. I fell asleep to its noise.

On one of the days that followed my father picked me up from school. In the car I told him, “My sister is not dead.”

When I said this, he began to cry. I could not understand. It was good news.

It was sunny out. People were riding bikes. It was a beautiful day.

What does it mean to be alive?

It means that the table is set for you before dinner. That you turn in your homework and that your homework is graded. That people talk to you as if you were near them.

Last night I set three plates, three sets of silverware, and three glasses. The television was on. I think it was a baseball game. We were having frozen lasagna.

“Why are there three plates?” asked my father.

“One for you, one for me, one for my sister,” I said.

My father took his plate and ate in his room.

My sister and I ate together in silence.

I had to approach a quiet boy who was two grades below me for copies. He was frightened of me, and he did what I asked.

I spent a long time after school working since I had two sets of assignments to turn in instead of one.

I handed the homework into my sister’s teacher.

“Why are you giving this to me?” she asked.

“It’s my sister’s.” I said.

I could see the pity in her eyes. She graded it. She was the kindest person I had ever known.

When I was alone in my room I talked to my sister. She didn’t say much. There    wasn’t much to talk about.

“You should go to therapy,” said my father.

I did not want to go to therapy.

“You have suffered a great loss,” said the therapist.

He didn’t have a face. It was just smooth flesh covering the entirety of his bald head.

I forgot to set the table for my sister last night. She had to eat on the floor. She had to use her hands instead of utensils. My father sat with me as we ate. He tried to talk about  anything besides what was inside his head. I cannot remember what he said.

I think of her face always because I am terrified of forgetting it.

I wish it would rain more often.

I go to the cemetery where my sister is buried. I sit by her tombstone. Long weeds are beginning to grow above her gravesite.

I pick one of these long weeds from the ground.

Its head, tilting slightly, its neck barely able to support it.

I will put it in a pot

On my windowsill

That way I will have something living

To remind me of her

END