10/30/89--8/31/09

I am going to a memorial service today. Jonathan David Storll Welch. Jon Jon. Jonafin. Johnnykins (i don't think he liked that one). Killed by a roadside bomb in Afghanistan. We met 19 years ago. He was six months old, learning to crawl. I was seven, and Kimberly and I were hopelessly devoted from that day on. It's easier for me to write about God or writing or my own interpersonal troubles than it is to write about this. I can't control this and I can't hide from it. There is no resolution or clever last line. Just messy grief spilling out of all of us who love him. He is gone and we are brokenhearted. We woke up this morning with the heaviness of knowing we have to say goodbye today. We don't want to, but we have to.