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Personal Essay
Rough Drafts
#24
Death-day anniversaries are strange. Like other anniversaries there is a thrum of pressure pressed against the back of one’s mind. Its hot breath whispering,
“It must be special.” Or “GO ALL OUT!” Or whatever particular flavor your anniversary anxiety takes. When you celebrate this death-aversary, do you do what they would want or what you would?
Unlike other anniversaries, the one who you’re celebrating is no longer there. There is no one to recieve the gifts and attention. No one to try to impress. The relationship you had is a literal one-sided affair. A performance for an audience that isn’t there. And each year that passes since that last major life cycle event gets easier and harder to navigate at the same time.
Easier, in that, the immediate pain from the loss is no longer swallowing you whole at a moment’s notice like it had when every dusty corner of the house or song on the radio reminded you of the them-sized hole they left you with. Harder, in that, it becomes more of a stretch to remember certain moments: why those dusty corners mattered, what it felt like to hug them or the banal, small ways they existed day-to-day.
Then there are the thoughts of how the life you had could not have been more different to the one you have now. The feeling of guilt for…
