When someone close to the family dies, a lot of dust is stirred up. My godfather died last week, and I was informed that his burial will be tomorrow – more by accident than by plan. We hadn’t talked in 5 years, and in late 2018 I became curious what he and his wife were up to. Why not visit them for a change, since they don’t come visit anymore? I was at their place a couple times, but most of the time, like once every month plus for birthdays or so, my godfather and his wife visited us at home, back when I lived with my father.

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Last December, my grand-father died. His breathing got shallow, he wasn’t hungry all of a sudden, then went to take a nap in his favorite chair. There, he slowly, and I hope painlessly, began to tune out a bit, fall asleep, and eventually cease to … live. In the days after his death, I helped a bit with the funeral preparations, and I take care of my nearly blind grand-mother once a week ever since. I spent a lot of time with my grand-parents. We were pretty close. I love them, and so I begin to crave for some kind of totem that keeps a piece of my grand-father’s live somewhere visibly in my life.

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Exactly one year ago, my baby brother was born. I was raised to adulthood an only child. Naturally, I got really excited about the birth of my little brother. I imagined how we would play and what we could do together, me being 25 years above his age. I asked myself seemingly adult questions, too: what would I be able to pass on to him? How could I contribute to his upbringing?

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