I just finished practicing death. Not suicide. That’s not what I’m talking about. I’m in my motel bed with my arms at my side and my chin tilted up like my moms was when I tried not to look at her while she laid there. Not here in this bed but at the church my grandpa built and her father built and her friends were telling me how sorry they were and how she’s not in pain anymore and I lost focus for just one moment and I glanced over there. I had avoided it all morning even though I was standing just feet from her and this time I was across the room and there was this woman holding a soggy Kleenex and I couldn’t stop staring at it and I couldn’t stop thinking about getting her a new one because this one had had it and I started wondering if anyone had ever wrung out a Kleenex and I was wondering how I could stare at this disgusting wad of snot but I couldn’t look at my own mother. And this woman and her words and her Kleenex and I felt my eyes shoot across the room, past a pile of crying people and I saw part of the casket and I was glad my eyes landed just on the casket but I couldn’t stop staring at it and a man moved and there she was even though it didn’t look like her, not like the mom that let little me hide behind her legs on the first day of school or who slept next to me after I was shot in the guts or who watched me get married young and divorced young. Now I have my only bad memory of her and it’s not even her and it’s a seven year memory but it’s just as strong and I want to wring it out of me but I can’t so I lay here in this bed practicing like I’m in my casket knowing that one day I’ll be lying there just like her but I won’t know I am and I won’t look like my self and I wonder if she’s out there in some form right now trying her hardest to look at me.