In a few years, I would be dead, a memory in some data bank, possibly even erased, to make room for those still alive.
The sky was gray; overcast, as I walked the two miles from my house to the beach, the wind hitting my face hard.
“Lyle?” a voice crept from my memories; July 12th, two years, maybe three years ago, I was seventeen, Aunt Tilda was dying; I couldn’t see her then, there at the hospital.
My mother was dying too, both of cancer. I tried to see them but I couldn’t, I was sick, the flu, I think, my father let me peek at them through the window of their rooms. Both laughed and waved.
I waved back.
When I die, I hope there is someone there to wave at me; a small glimmer of hope before the end.
I wrote a letter to mother; father gave it to her, please come home, I will make Chester pudding for you and father.
She never came home; died on the 20th of July.
Aunt Tilda on the 21st.
I sat there on the beach.
I did not think about death as the waves crashed to the shore.
I thought about life.
It was a good day.