Do I still get a grace period for feeling miserable that Ed is gone, or has that period already ended maybe six months ago? Or maybe the grace period recommences every year when we reach the anniversary of his passing. I don’t really know how people perceive these things.

I spent a lot of today wondering if anyone is actually thinking that it’s been almost a year since he decided to say “Peace out!” in his own way and leave us. I’m sure my parents are painfully cognizant of it. That would explain their sudden getaway trip as well as my mom’s voice being a lot softer and more gentle the last few days over the phone. Who remembers? Or really, who even cares? Who thinks about the fact that he died almost a year ago now? I wonder if any of his church friends ever think about him, or if my good-for-nothing cousins stop for a moment to contemplate his passing. Do they even remember the date? And then I get into an angry mood thinking about how embarrassing two of them were when they gave their version of a “eulogy” at my brother’s funeral, and I ask myself what made me more infuriated — that terrible, immature, shallow speech, or my third cousin’s rushed, mumbled, and non-enunciated recitation of 1 Corinthians 13 — all of this done within three feet of my brother’s dead body.

Maybe my friend was right. Maybe none of them should be invited to my wedding.