Dear Death,

On November 18th, 2023, I came home late from work and proceeded up the steps to the front door with exhaustion, looking through the window expecting to see nana on her recliner. I routinely expected her warm smile, but the eerie stillness of the air met me instead. I dropped my bag and keys clinking on the counter, I called out, “Nana?” -voice trembling with foreboding. Scanning every room looking for family, but came to nothing; routine quickly abandoned. I finally came upon the bathroom door me and my grandmother shared. I creaked the door open to a scene time won’t erase: a butcher knife lay abandoned on the sink, blood scattered across the mirror. Turning around, my heart sunk as my eyes adjusted to the scene. Nan laid still in the bathtub, water tinged with red, her gentle face pale. Overwhelming horror seized my heart, a memory frozen in sorrow, innocent eyes witnessing unbearable pain. I found life shattered like the silence. I screamed as if releasing despair’s symphony. A low tremble rose to a piercing wail. Time warped — seconds stretched into eternal nightmares. On November 18th, 2023, you took one of the most important people in my life, my grandmother.

Death, you travel with so much mythology, inspire fear, cause pain, but don’t even have the authority to make a simple trade. I know all of your sentiments and the poets spend their time trying to understand you, but I know exactly who you are: you are the very opposite of my existence. I hate you for accepting invitations and whispering lies into our ears and savagely interrupting the innocent and young by your cold and icy grasps. You rob the world of promise, laughter, and untold stories, leaving only echoes of what could never be. You are the very definition of what rots in the ground, yet you haunt my mind every day. You would keep me up at night, scared to close my eyes and see the mess that you left that night, with no slight understanding of how much she meant to my soul. Do you collect my tears as a trophy from what you’ve gained as a result of what I’ve lost? How greedy of you to keep people in separate places – worlds apart. It’s not in human nature to bid farewell. And that’s why I feared you because you will continue to take because that’s all you do is take, and take, and take. You take, and we eat up all the pain and we swallow it and I have the nightmares and cold sweats about her bleeding out, and it’s how you take- no closure, no goodbyes, no warnings. This is what you are, a monster that lives in the dark and patiently waits to disrupt our world.

I’ve learned many secrets through my grief. Through faith, my Father will heal my heart from the damage you caused. You stole countless memories yet to be: you ended earthly life but began God’s eternal embrace. I will join my grandmother whole, no grief- only reunion. Your temporary win, His eternal victory. Once permanent, now defeated. Jesus’s blood stained your dark door- unlocking heaven’s gate. You stole temporarily: He restores eternally. Your sting neutralized. His love remains forever venomous to your claim. God is death’s conqueror. You are merely a shadow preceding Gold’s glorious rebirth: your darkness only highlights His eternal light. And one day I know I will be with her again because nothing can separate a Christian from God’s love. But if I am reminded of how much pain that courses through my body when I think of what you did, I am reminded of how much love I had in my heart for her. I’d rather remember love and endure the pain than not know love at all; it’s a pain I’ll embrace forever. And one day there will be no more you and no more pain. But for now, we come to a standstill and I say to you: I accept you, and when it is my day to come, I know I will truly accept you because my Father will be on the other side. This is the faith I carry. You cannot scare me forever. And I will not let fear lead my life. I will live for her.

Till we meet one day, Allison Collins.

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