Laughing— Always Laughing

Outside by the community park, I sat in twilight, watching Brendan chase his Papi around the manicured grass, laughing— always laughing. In the lowering halfmist, marsh cranes circled in the halflight.

His eyes shine winter blue in twilight hours.
During the drive back home, Brendan sat in a casual, pensive mood. He asked, lisping his ‘th’s from his car seat: “What happened to your bruder?” Everything paused around us. One of those eerie moments in life when time itself stalls. Freezing the material world into a limbo of sorts. The lights. The blue hour. The sun. The auto’s motor. The sense of self—

Lane, my brother, passed away twenty-seven years ago, this August. Lane was only eighteen. His body failed him one night around one in the morning. His heart simply turned itself off on its own accord. No rational logic.

We have photographs placed around the house in strategic positions. I’ve told Brendan who the images are— but without in-depth exposition. Today was the first time he made the association of Lane’s absence.

I kept my answer short. Brief. Establishing the notion of an afterlife in basic terms, even though I myself have no firm foundation of faith to explain the concept adequately. Let’s call my belief an acceptance of death. Let’s say I have a reserve on mystical claims. I’ve experienced at odd moments a clam meditative connection with a notion of a presence— that hour I held Brendan for the first time, my valuable package wrapped in blue sheets.

Whatever I said at that now moment I forget. The answer, however, worked. A resolution was reached and Brendan shifted to a new topic.

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