Today I remember them, because they have a big brother there with them too.

He told me before he died that he would watch over you all and play with you there the way he wanted to play with E, until we could all be together again. I like to believe that it’s real and they’re together. Maybe one day our family will be together again. I love you. I love you. I love you. I love you so much. 

I saw him, standing there. He wore his darkness like a cloak, one that blends itself into the company he keeps, until it stitches itself as skin onto his body.

“You forget, my beloved, that shadows flee in the light of the sun.”

And disappear.

“Forgive me, my beloved, I did not know that loving you would melt the bones from your flesh. Or that it would taste like broken glass scraping the inside of my cheek.”

He burned with the intensity of fire, and I did not know that if I held him, he would leave scorch marks across my arms also.

I cried when he died, and the heavens did not answer; there was only the void that whispered back,

“This is what it costs to love.”