Dear Comrades, Had I Known

I’m sitting in my newly thrifted camping chair from Kringloop, which I’ve repurposed for my balcony, and I’ve just finished the first chapter of the “Dear Comrade” section of A Little Life. The chapter details the aftermath of Willem’s death, and Jude pondering everything he would have done differently had he known Willem would die before him, which mostly involved stockpiling more pictures and recordings of him. Between hanging up photos of my family in my apartment today, reading that chapter, and staring out into the quiet beauty of the night sky, I couldn’t help but ask myself the same question. What would I have done differently had I known my mother and brother would die, and that there was nothing I could do to stop it? Everything. A whole lot of everything. Before you proceed, cue up Fourth of July by Sufjan Stevens. Let’s start with my mother. No child walks around expecting a parent to die young, but unfortunately, I was met with that tragedy almost 17 years ago. Can you…