Dear Frank,
I wonder if you are still alive. I wonder if your wife is still alive. I really liked her.When I showed up at your house at 9am she told me bluntly she was a bitch and not a morning person. She also wouldn't let me take her picture. But when it was time for her bath with Ellie from Hospice you didn't seem to mind me. I liked hearing about your adventures in the Navy, I could imagine you classically handsome on the boardwalk of the New Jersey shore. I think you liked telling me and liked remembering for a stranger, until you had to get up from the table with both hands after two attempts, that's when you looked down and shook your head and your voice trembled as you said, "It's really tough, it's really tough getting old." I wanted to tell you, I see your face often. I question my mortality, and that of those around me. I can't quite grasp the point, a faith without religion, a purpose in a future that fades to black. When we are dead and gone, when you are gone and your face stares back at me, this picture I took of you/from you, means what?
If today were a perfect day for banana fish there would be no need to mull over the "only" existential question, Salinger answered it swiftly in a hotel by the seaside and a revolver in a suitcase, and yet I can't get over a person ceasing to exist. Like the news report about a woman being hit by a car at a bus stop down the street, or the Amber alert on the way to California, "Child abduction Purple/Gold RV CA Lic.5GEW58" these senseless acts of ending the existence of a human being. Ceasing to exist. Dear Frank, thank you for letting me take a bit of you with me.
Sincerely,
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