Jung Ho Han, Calla Lillies

Calla Lillies Jung Ho Han

You won’t feel much at first. Your mind is just built that way. It blinds itself, conducting an orchestra with no music, stretching every second of the opening act. Until it can’t.

It’s the questions. Where were you? What were they like? How close were you to them?

And then the questions. Why weren’t you there? How could you not have noticed? How close were you to them, really?

Everyone will try to comfort you, of course, but no one’s there to stay. Some days, you’ll feel like your intestines are being torn out. Others, you’ll want your intestines to be torn out. Whether you like it or not, each passing day you’ll grow older, dragging memories behind like a broken limb, losing small details every time you wake up.

In time, you’ll feel all right. Never free, but afloat, just enough above the surface to breathe. Sometimes you need to anesthetize the horror that you can’t remember their laughter anymore, but even remembering to be horrified becomes harder each time.

And one day, you’ll visit them. You’ll tell them how you’ve managed to get by, but things really aren’t the same without. You’ll tell them you miss them. You’ll tell them you love them. Then, you’ll put down the bouquet of calla lilies and walk down that familiar path from the cemetery for the last time.

And that’s that.