At 2:30 this morning the sadness woke me up and washed through me. It was a bittersweet experience. I miss everyone I've lost. Everyone who's not right here with me and no one is right here with me. Oh, there's the obvious- my mom, Grandma, her. It was bigger than that, though. I miss Bubba. He was the little boy who lived down the street from me in Birmingham. His father backed over him in the driveway. It was my only real lesson in ultimate loss until years later when my little schoolmate, Lynn Lowry, died of leukemia in the third grade.
Viet Nam made it all bigger, closer, more real.
Now I have an address book by the phone and it's filled with more dead folks than living friends.
Yeah, I miss the dogs, too. All of the dogs, not just the ones who were mine. The cats. Every goldfish, guinea pig and white mouse.
Every living thing changes the world profoundly. Elvis and Joan of Arc are in the history books. Bubba doesn't even have a Wikipedia page. Who decides. The memories are mine. I want to burn until there's nothing left but ash and I want the ash to be love.
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