Die every other day

When someone I've known dies, I think every now and then, "they've been gone for a week now..." and in that moment where I'm wondering how long it's been since I've seen them, since they've been around, I really never think of them as dead. That game never ends because people ask you how long it's been and you sit and think... "shit it must be a year now", and it's hard because you know with every day it's almost like you flow further away from them, not the other way round. I feel like a boat floating off into the horizon, as I stare off at the land on which I had stood on my whole life, the one that supported me, the one I knew I had to say goodbye to because the doctors told us so, well I stare at it as it becomes smaller... and smaller, and I think we're all afraid of the day we can't see that island, land, country anymore.

I think death makes all atheists think twice when it happens to them. I don't know where she is... but I just don't feel as though she is dead, she's just there. I don't feel like she has left us alone... yet I don't feel like she is watching down on us.

You know one of the hardest things about someone dying who lived with you your whole life is that everything they owned is still there. We gave away all of her clothes but now and then I find myself wanting to wear her dressing gown every now and then, I want to feel her wedding band twisting around my fingers, her ring fell off in hospital once her fingers had become too thin. I don't think theres much left in our home that she owned, my mum didn't see any point in keeping her things, she never does. You can throw it all away as much as you want but their room is still there and their unmistakable scent painfully lingers. Every now and then I use her old hair brush, I see her hair between the bristles and I can't bring myself to clean it out yet.