Today is the anniversary of a death.
I never really knew my great aunt; I think I saw her once before she died, and she had already begun her decline. But hers was the first funeral I can remember attending where I really had some grasp on the finality that was death, young as I was at the time.
I cried. Not at the funeral, no, I was still stunned that civilized people would so casually show a body to anyone who cared to see. I cried that night, weeping soundlessly into my pillow, enraged that a relative, even a distant one, should be taken before I ever really had the chance to know her.
I wanted her back. I want to greet her, talk to her, know her. I felt that there must be some great wisdom that she could impart to me if only I could speak with her again. For the first time in my life, I felt a void. An ache. An emptiness, one that would go unfilled.
I'm older now. Years older, and probably more jaded by the ways of the world, but I still remember the pain I felt that night.
I'm not sure I want to forget.