I don't think loss affects me
like other people; twin brother
dead at birth. I don't think
I've ever known anything else.
When somebody's gone, they're
gone, they never were. I go
on as though nothing had
happened because nothing has
happened or nothing different
from what I was born with.
It's like it hurts to lose
your arms but if you were born
without arms, then that would
be the way you were and you'd
adapt: you'd use your toes a
lot, more than anyone imagined
you could. And you'd go on
and conceive an armless life
without ever thinking about it
because that's how you were.
I think that's the way I am
about loss. It never occurs
to me to imagine an alternative
and I go on. And I don't
really grieve. How do you
grieve something that never
was? It's like standing in
your own shadow. You don't
see it: it's right where you
are. That's why I'm not sure
that death will be a sleeping.
Who knows? Perhaps it will
be a waking. Either way, it
doesn't bother me. I mean,
what have I got to lose?