to worry about him any more, and yet she’ll have to worry in a different way until the day she is covered in flowers as well. I am nothing, if not the child who filled a small mouth with hazelnuts one day at the waterpark, and sugar cereal the next. And I am nothing if not my mother's son, and I refuse to refer to him in the past tense. What is a past tense worth, if we’re both still kids at a waterpark, which we always will be, one running and one walking as fast as I could. One stealing and one watching in awe. One eating three bowls of cereal and one eating two. I am no more real now than he was back then. And the day is still exhausting. And the car ride home is still so warm. And we are brothers for a moment. And forever.
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