Today is the celebration of life for my late friend and chosen brother. I’m opting out of going for multiple reasons.

Over the course of his sickness and the process of him dying I was actively processing my grief rather than just reacting to the events. Because of this it feels like participating in today’s events would be counterproductive.

Joe hasn’t processed his grief, which means he would be leaning on me to help him process it in the moment. I’m not his crutch in this, I tried to help him through it while I was going through it so we could grieve our friend TOGETHER but he was numb and distant.

So he’s taking his mother with him. She loved Mark like a son, so its fitting that she goes. She is also Joe’s mother, which is also fitting, because that is what he probably needs right now… mothering. And that’s not my job. It never should have been my job.

I had a dream about Mark last night. First dream I’ve had in more than a month. He never came out to me, but I knew… I’ve always known. Much like I always knew about my child.

In the dream I saw him at the outskirts of the crowd at a concert. I’d recognize that tall Armenian anywhere even if I only saw the back of his head. We left the concert together, walking the streets of New Orleans with a group of people who slowly broke off to whatever post concert activities they had planned, while he and I continued walking and talking. In this dream he finally opened up about his queer experience, we shared so much in what was in reality milliseconds, but it felt like an entire evening. And then my alarm went off, and I didn’t want to get out of bed. I didn’t wake up in tears, even though I miss him more than I can adequately express. Instead I felt uplifted, like this “visitation” was validation that I’m doing the right thing. And not JUST that I’m not going to the celebration of life, but my acceptance of myself in spite of the chaos that it is bringing.

I do wish that he was still around for me to celebrate my realizations with. But there is some solace that perhaps he saw me as clearly as I saw him.