I was sifting through my boxes of writing today. I’ve come to the conclusion I must throw some of my early drafts out. Or I choose to. Much of it is on my computer, so it is just the paper I’m getting rid of. My place is too small for what amounts to three boxes of paper containing my writing. I came across this very short piece of writing that was written on April 19, 2017. I thought it worthy of posting.
I discovered on the third page of the medical examiner’s report that my friend’s heart weighed 270 grams. There was a separate report generated by the Necropsy Department, a name as Kafkaesque as the Department of Emergency Management. I contacted the latter to no avail to see if there was a 911 call for the homicide of Patricia Vance.
Her heart was on the small side of the average, 11 ounces. It was the equivalent weight of one dollar, in pennies. Two mourning doves. Or the comparison that is most difficult to wrap my head around, and at the same time most comforting, a thousand raindrops.
I learned one valuable lesson from the report: police officers have the spelling skills of a fourth grader. In that way, I feel a kinship with them.
I was emotionally overdue to sift through this information in the medical examiner’s report. I overcame my fear after a long slog of months of build up, of asking myself “should I open it today?” I couldn’t let fear stand in the way of getting new crumbs of information. Yet six months pass before I dare open it.
