How?

How can just opening a drawer full of old socks cause me to burst into tears this way? Cigarette butts in an ashtray, a half-squeezed tube of toothpaste...happening upon even tiny things like this, has me dissolving into abrupt, heaving, shuddering sobbing that just won't relent or be ignored. You know how you can cry so hard that you give yourself a headache? And feel stupid...

I was standing right there in the hospital room when he took his last breath, when his heart stopped beating. Later, after everyone left, I went into the room to kiss him goodbye one more time and his cheek and forehead were already cool against my lips. I was AT the funeral home. I was AT the church for his service. I was AT the cemetery in Virginia for his burial.

Why can I still not believe that my friend is dead? Why can I still not accept that I will never see him, hear him, touch him, hold him again. Never? NEVER?

It just doesn't seem possible. It still doesn't seem real. I'm sorry, but it just doesn't.

How can his shoes, his socks, his jackets, all those caps he loved to wear still be here...but he be gone forever. How can food he bought still be in the pantry? I'm not responsible for that random can of coconut milk or three bottles of hot sauce. All those stupid boxes of cereal are right there on that shelf? But he is gone? Forever? It can't be. It just can't be.

The curtains are still here. Dust balls on the closet floor, still here. Strands of his hair are still in his brush. His reading glasses. His mail. His basketball. His can of coffee. Boxes of syringes,. Insulin in the refrigerator. Medical records and doctor bills and prescriptions on top of prescriptions. Wraps and bandages. Heating pad. Jars and tubes and bottles and bottles and bottles of worthless fucking pills and medicine that didn't do him a bit of good. All that suffering and all that pain, all that torture and agony...and now he doesn't even exist anymore?

How is it possible?

How?