We traveled south to be with friends, people we no longer see as frequently as we would like. It was a last minute decision. “Do you want to go? Yes? Okay, then, we’re going.”

Death rends the fabric, then invites us to come together to stitch it back up.

We are all a mess. Our stitches are clumsy. We poke our thumbs on the needle points, and our blood dots the pretty pink napkins on the table.

Whose suffering is relieved by death? Surely not that of the dead; to feel relief, one must still be capable of feeling.

Must still be alive. Must still be feeling.

We are still alive. We are still feeling. And we are stitching and stitching.