Well I didn't, but they did

It will be a year on October 10th. Time passes and its a real strange thing. My first impulse when my brother showed up was to be embarrassed that it was late morning and I hadn't even showered. He sat down and told me that Sean died, that we had to go home right away, and then Mike came inside. You know, I had a sponge in my hand, just wiping down the counters without looking up while we talked about what happened and what had to happen next.

You think the whole world is supposed to stop but it doesn't. It keeps going and the banal things you were scared about before stay mundane and pointless but somehow worse. Clarity and perspective come later but those first few months, maybe even the first year, you suffer over just about everything you can. I broke a dish, my bike tire went flat, my family is half gone, it all feels remarkably the same. All bad news, all raining down on you with shocking constancy.

You know, I didn't cry for the first few hours. Terry borrowed Mike's car and we drove back to the Bronx in deep traffic, barely moving. His phone kept ringing and he just kept answering it, saying Sean died over and over again, providing the same details over and over again. I laughed at the time because the absurdity hurt so bad I could have died myself. I went home and just got to work cleaning my mother's apartment, just as I had before. Dusting the glass on the coffee table, emptying the ashtrays. It was terrible how familiar it all felt, that there was a procedure and I was following it.

I finally cried when I started to dust under the television, sorting through Sean's bizarre movie collection. It was the everyday artifacts that hurt to look at the most. The things a person surrounds themselves with because they were meant to keep living. The cup he had been drinking out of was still on the table, suddenly loaded and heavy because it was probably the last thing he ever touched. I was cleaning the apartment but there the cup sat and how could I even think to move it. It should stay there like a monument for the rest of my life. Making a thing like that so important, well it's enough to make you lose your mind.