A lot of kids at your high school want to get as far away from their families as possible, but that’s not you. I’m glad the Bay Area suits you. I’m glad you have parents and siblings and grandparents that you don’t want to get away from. I hope they’re all healthy and alive and still your biggest cheerleaders. Dude, you have the best parents. Your mom raised you to be a feminist, so I hope if you’re married, it’s to a strong woman who has a life and career all her own. Your dad raised you to think you could do whatever you set your mind to, so I hope you have your own company and, if you are making a lot of money, you’re putting your time and effort into innovations that make the world a better place.

And even though you never tell people that you also want to be a writer someday, I hope you’ve taken the time to help your grandparents write their memoir. They’re survivors. Everyone should hear what they went through as kids. You had a normal childhood. They had to spend part of theirs in an internment camp. I hope you never stop being the kind of person who sees how unfair that is. I hope you’re fighting for people who can’t fight for themselves.

In your spare time, I really hope you’ve been traveling. I hope you spent a year in Tokyo just to see what it would be like to live there. And I hope really expensive omakase sushi is your biggest indulgence. I know thirty seems old, but don’t have kids until you’re ready to be as good a parent as the ones you have. Anyway, buddy. Hope you’re making me proud. And I hope I made you proud.

Sincerely,

Andrew

It suddenly occurs to me that we are not just here mourning the Andrew we knew. We are also mourning the Andrew that will never be. I let out a series of uncontrollable sobs for future him. If we were all together in person, this would be the moment when everyone in the funeral home would probably turn back to stare at me. But we are on Zoom, and I am on mute, and no one hears my sadness. And I don’t hear anyone else’s. Any show of emotion is tempered by a tiny microphone icon on the computer screen. We get to be loud and silent at the same time. I look up at my computer screen and see that Parisa is sobbing, too. I am so glad she’s okay after the accident. How would I survive if my best friend was smiling back at me only through old photographs in a slideshow? I pray to a nonbinary God that I never have to find out.

SPRING

Parisa

Are you awake?

Gabriela

Yes, unfortunately. Can’t sleep.

Parisa