I think about the day a person dies, how the morning is just a morning, a meal is just a meal, a song is just a song. It’s not the last morning, or the last meal, or the last song. It’s all very ordinary, and then it’s all very over.

The space between life and death is a moment.

Last February 19th was a day like any other. I took some photos of my baby flipping through a book called Lost Beauties of the English Language. I made coffee, drove to work, taught my students, ate some lunch. I noted the beautiful day. I drove to meet my family at speech therapy. After my daughter’s session, I changed her diaper like I’d done a thousand times before.

All the while, you laid lifeless on a rug a thousand miles away, and I had no idea. Until I got the call, I had no idea. In one moment you were alive, and in the next, you weren’t. That fast. In one moment, I was myself, and in the next, I wasn’t.

Because a huge part of me is you.

And, while it was over for you in a moment (at least I hope it was that fast), it will remain alive in me for hundreds of thousands of future moments. I am forever changed by something that happened to you in a moment.

The Greeks called it a peripeteia: a sudden reversal of fortune or change in circumstances; a point of no return.

I wonder what led up to your point of no return.

I wonder about the first thing you thought when you opened your eyes that morning.

I wonder what you ate for breakfast, for lunch, for dinner. I hope one of them was Chili’s nachos. Or a plate of melted string cheese. Or the chocolatey bottom of a Drumstick.

I wonder what Phish or Alkaline Trio or Islands songs you heard while driving in your black car with the windows down, smoking a cigarette, wearing your Ray Bans.

I wonder what jokes you typed on the notepad of your iPhone.

I wonder if you watched any adorable videos of your niece and, if so, which ones.

I wonder what plans you made for later that day and for tomorrow.

I wonder what you thought about before you did the thing that changed all of us forever.

I wonder if, despite the bruise on the inside of your arm, you were happy.