Into This River I Drown

by T.J. Klune

The measure of a man, she said finally, is not the words that mark his end, but everything he’s done since his beginning.

I’m already having a hard time imagining the way I lived my life when he wasn’t here. It was routine wrapped in grief. It was monotony disguised as security. I feel like I was blind and am now able to see for the first time in years. Everything is bright. Everything is shiny.

But pain is selfish. Grief is selfish. It demands attention, and the more you focus on it, the more it wants from you.

No, my anger is growing because of God, that bastard God who I am sure is the one who has taken everything from me and Calliel. He’s the one who took my father; he’s the one who caused Calliel to doubt himself. He’s the one who has caused me to doubt myself, to drown in a river I am no longer sure I can keep my head above.