ABSTRACT
The private visitation for family was scheduled for Friday afternoon. The mortuary was only a few blocks from our house, so my parents walked. It was a beautiful September day, but I didn’t want to walk. It would be too exhausting. I still felt as though I was walking underwater, moving in slow motion. It was a struggle to keep going, resisting the temptation to simply stop, to give up. I was aware of my heart beating, of my lungs breathing. It was as though I had to direct those activities consciously, as though a part of my brain had been damaged.
