Michael's Memorial Page.

time of death: 9:30 pm, February 22nd 2024

audio from 2022. I was taking a class where the final was to tell a story.

there's a lot that could be said here. Even a year later though I still don't have the words. I thought that I would have put myself back together after all this time, but I'm only now putting pencil to paper and making art again.

He survived long enough to see me graduate college. After moving back in with my family that October, I acted as his caretaker until he passed. After years of only seeing the illness through my laptop screen, being there with him everyday tinted my life.

It feels wrong focusing on myself in his memorial page, but his absense is impossible to fill. Who he was can't fit on an HTML page of a derelict website. So many stories and moments that I don't know how to communicate because I've forgotten how to grieve. On his deathbed, after he was no longer verbal, everything that I wanted to tell him caught in my throat and I just sat there holding his hand.

While sitting next to his casket, I played Knocking on Heavens Door using his guitar. It was the last song he ever taught me.

G. D. Am. G. D. C.

Stretched across infinity as I continue to play on that very same instrument.

In November I moved out of my family's house so that I could live in an apartment with my partners. I just needed to be somewhere new.

I hope I made you proud.