“Each of us has his own rhythm of suffering.”

July 18, 1978, from Roland Barthes’ Mourning Diary

If you knew Gailen Veurink, you’d recognized his confident tenor from the sixth row on the right side of our church’s auditorium. He worked hard and hated nicknames and loved Duke basketball. Everything was a Powerpoint presentation. Nothing else mattered when he scooped ice cream from a plastic bucket after chasing us, sweaty, around the house before bath time. He was our world: my mom who married him in college. My brother with his exact same eyes. My sister who wrapped his heart around her finger. And he died fourteen years ago.