It makes no sense to me, thinking that I am dead.

Dear Trevor,

I’m proud of you for going back to school and facing your fears—at least one of them. The other one is still to come, I suppose.

The first time I kissed a girl was in 8^th grade, when I was a year older than you are now. My dad died that year, you know, when I was 14. It seems we’re both cursed with fathers who left us when we were young.

The girl I kissed was named Frances Wilkson. Her dad owned the Buick dealership in Renton. Frances had glorious red hair, clear skin with just a few freckles high on her cheeks and seemed to always wear these green, velvety dresses to school. She was lovely and knew it. I was the first boy she kissed, too, but she only kissed me once and then quickly moved on to older boys who had money or popularity or were good at sports. I was her training ground, I think, just to make sure she could do it. She could. I can almost still feel that kiss today. I can feel the velvet of her green dress crushing beneath my fingertips as I help her close. I feel the memory of it more than I feel anything here, in this foggy, uncertain place.

Writing these few letters to you and reading about your days in junior high school bring up all sorts of other memories for me—both of my own childhood and of the childhoods of your brothers. Your brother Steffan was 14 when I came to this place—when I died, I suppose you would say. It makes no sense to me, thinking that I am dead. I can’t see it. I am bored, certainly, but dead?

On one hand, I have not been reduced to nothingness. On the other, my body has not been glorified. I am not burning in hell or rejoicing in heaven. I am certainly not reincarnated as a gazelle. I’m still my same, old, five-foot-eight-inches of grizzled self. I still get dressed and undressed. I still eat and crap and eat and crap, although I doubt the amount I eat would keep me alive where you are. I still have to shave every morning. There is no barber here, so Carl, the other realtor, and I cut each other’s hair with a pair of kitchen shears we borrow from the restaurant.

There is nothing here to dread, yet nothing to look forward to. Again, I say to you, don’t squander your life. Your moments there on earth are rare and remarkable. Magical even, you might say. I wish I could promise you had more to look forward to after you’re done there. I can only tell you to cherish every moment.

Dad