My mom died a week ago and no one told me.

The nursing home told my uncle that they didn't have my contact information (I've had the same phone number for almost 10 years and they've called it many times). I had no idea she was in hospice, that she got better for a minute, that she had a respiratory infection, that she died and was cremated and there was a death certificate and an empty hospital bed. I don't even know what day she left.

I walked around for days and my mother was dead. I rode trains, and two planes, I hugged old friends, I abused my body in several different ways, I drank a margarita with fresh watermelon juice, I woke up on Sunday in an apartment I'd never been to with people I'd mostly just met, I watched Seth play the ukelele, I had terrible meetings at my terrible job, and my mother was ashes the whole time.