I am a girl and a boy and it’s 1944 and the world has gone insane, so the only thing they can hang onto is each other. I am the middle of their three sons and a friend to the girl up the street. I am the three comic book fans who helped me ground myself after the family moved across the state, and the one I can still call friend.
I am hundreds, or is it thousands, who shared a piece of their life with me for seconds, minutes or hours. I am the four women to whom I pledged not till death would we part, and especially the one to whom I kept that vow. I am the friend who has stayed my friend after decades, even when I was not a very good friend.
We are each the sum total of the lives we have touched, and who have touched us, the people we have loved and who have loved us, and even those we passed briefly on our journey from here to there.
And for this moment I am the sad-eyed canine who sits next to me, accepting my hand on the side of her face, and lies down patiently when it becomes clear I’m not going to get out of my chair until I finish writing this, no matter how much she wants to be outside. I shall not let her wait any longer.
