SmokeLong Quarterly

Don’t forget that Grandma’s birthday is on September 14 and Papa’s is August 30 and that he won’t care if you’re a day or two late but she will; don’t lose the master password for my Bitwarden vault where all my other passwords live because Papa won’t know how to find it; remember he’s too proud to ask where is the smoked paprika or how do I use compost or would you have time to come with me to a concert tonight; don’t forget your camping gear and Dr. Seuss books are still in the basement; go ahead and take the garden seeds in the blue tin box but don’t wait too long to plant them; know how very proud I am of both of you — not in an Asian tiger mom kind of way — but with all my heart and soul, which may make you feel uncomfortable because we are not a family who says these kinds of things out loud so guess why I’m writing this; which reminds me please burn my journals unread, all of them going back to 1969 when Grandpa made me keep a diary of my first trip to Taiwan and all I could say was that my brothers are weird; there are lots of folks more than happy to help you out with getting my finished work published like Jeannine and MTC in the US and Sarah and Michelle in Amsterdam and even more who’d be happy to organize readings if and when my essay collection does get published so don’t be shy or think (like Papa) that you might be imposing because if you’re ever going to be able to milk the fact that I’m dead then this is the time to do it; don’t you dare forget the summer I read Harry Potter to you inside a leaky tent which you hated until a year later and then you couldn’t get enough or the survival skills I tried to teach you the summer before college but somehow the cooking stuck with one and the laundry with the other while neither of you got both or the week we went to Rome with the six of us to celebrate me outliving my first prognosis and you and Jo and Dominique sat on the living room floor to play Mario Kart; do you know that, in addition to being brothers, it’s also possible to be friends?

And now I am wondering whether I’ve left you with more questions than answers, in which case you might like to visit me from time to time (there are great sausage rolls in the village). Don’t worry about remembering the exact spot since you’ll only see it the day I’m buried when I imagine your thoughts will be elsewhere; look instead for a place like the painting by Johannes Bilders that hangs in our bedroom – a bright opening in the beech and English oak that seems to invite the sun inside but without the creek and the washerwoman and the sheets bleaching on the shrubs – a view that I look at every night before I go to sleep and can now have for all eternity. Then again maybe the app is a better idea since it uses GPS to guide you to the right spot (within four meters) but think also about the fact that you’ll be tramping around in high grass which may have deer skat or ticks or grave markers underfoot so dress appropriately; remember that you can’t leave anything at the gravesite like helium balloons or teddy bears or goofy hats, only cut flowers. There’s a nice smooth wooden bench near my spot so you can take a rest and we can chat, if you’d like.