I wonder why there is no valid explanation for such a traditional feeling. Dealt along the generations like an abused card deck, so any person can look down and feel their stomach drop, clench their ace of spades like a death sentence.

But it isn't one, and by this time you have already gone. The card is a haunting. A thin-papered ghost, slick from the fingertips that have dulled its shiny surface, smooth like a stone- long caressed by freezing waters.

And you hold it. Grip it. And you can only bear to think "Why have you given this to me?"

"What have I done to deserve it now?"

Mouth gaping, slow-dying fish on his deck, chest heaving dry sobs, as if salty tears will provide enough water to survive.

There is no rescue. Pass the card along as much as you will, and you will, but you have only cursed another. You still have the delicate shadows under your eyes; bruises from the long nights spent wringing your sheets around your arms, staining your pillowcases, only to change them each morning.

He always said your bed smelled so clean.