The Correspondent

by Virginia Evans

But I think of life rather like a long road we walk in one direction. By and large a lonesome walk out in the wildness of hills and wind. Mountains. Snow. And sometimes there is someone to come along and walk with you for a stretch,

Daan and I were happy, even though I didn’t know it was happiness at the time because it felt like busyness and exhaustion and financial stress and self-doubt.

Grief shared, I think, can produce two outcomes. Either you bind yourselves together and hold on for dear life, or you let go and up goes a wall too high to be crossed.

The grief that must fill the world is incomprehensible.

When you rush you pen things you didn’t mean and you tire. It takes patience to say exactly what one means, to think of the right word.

words, especially those written, are immortal.

I was only a child. I was learning what vastness is found in the hearts of men.

And yes, I will go into the year as you said: boldly, unapologetically, head up and not taking bullshit from anyone with a penis.

I have missed you all this time, of course, but the fact is that I got every moment of you there was.