dear kevin you said there were things your brain wouldn’t let you remember so i will remind you. she died in a car accident. you almost never found out. you would have gone on checking her website every day, wondering why she never updated anymore or returned your emails, until one day you forgot about her. luckily a friend of hers emailed you and told you that she had died. the funeral was the next day. she sent you the address and you saw that she had lived only 3 hours away. in all your emails and instant messaging actual physical locations had never come up. it had just been assumed that distance was something that would never matter between you two, and now you were printing out directions to get to her funeral. you drove there alone, wearing your black suit. you had the radio on but your attention kept fading in and out. you would try to sing along with a chorus and realize that you were listening to a commercial. you got to the funeral home and stood in the receiving line, wondering what you would say to her family. were you a friend of hers? she probably hadn’t ever mentioned you, and it’s not as though she would list your name when her curious parents asked her where she was going on friday nights. in the end it didn’t really matter who you were because the parents didn’t care. you gave her mother a hug and said you were very sorry. her daughter was lying in an open casket five feet away. you met her sisters. she used to complain about them to you but you couldn’t guess which one would have hit her in the head with a stapler. you left and stood outside wondering what you should do next. drive around. try to find a place to eat. you went to your car and for some reason had trouble unlocking the door, but you got in and started it and pointed it towards the highway. it was gray and the trees were all dead and you thought you remembered the sun shining on your way there but couldn’t be sure now.