Ghost

Dear Jonathan,

In the photo below is me before your funeral. I wore the shoes for you. I knew you would get it...my reason for wearing them. 

And Jonathan, I will try to love autumn again.

The Michigan air is cooling and the leaves are turning to flame. I have memories of walking with you amongst the fallen leaves; stopping along the way to bend to the earth and choose an extra specially colored one to take home to display...Our feet shuffling along the road. The sound of it is still in my ears.

And Jonathan I can’t go into the meat cooler at work anymore. I could before but I can’t now. For reasons I’m not sure I can articulate. It’s something about being there in the cold, around the flesh that is no longer animated, the  finality of it. I can’t explain it. Maybe because I was there with you in the cold for so long. Lying beside your naked body in a drawer  waiting to be warmed again and then released by  fire. 

Ashes to ashes.

Dust to dust.

Your body once existed inside my own.  
I pushed you out into the world.
The world consumed you.

I am just a ghost now, Jonathan. I can smile. I can even laugh.

But I am a ghost with my nose pressed against the glass of my former self. On the other side lives hope and renewal and a black and white photo of you and your siblings all together again at Christmas.
What do I do with that?