I love you.

It was a couple of days ago when I heard knocking coming from my uncle’s room. It couldn’t have been literal knocking though because it was this deep, pneumatic sound as if someone was driving a hammer into the wall. At first, I paid it no attention and returned to my poker game. After all, I had heard my mother come downstairs moments earlier and we were in the process of fixing up my uncle’s room. She was probably just starting on the day’s work early.

However, after the knocking continued for several minutes, I decided to check it out for myself. I closed my laptop and slipped on some socks before getting up. I felt ready to leave but my body froze with my arm outstretched toward the door handle. The knocking was getting louder. Chills shot up my arms as my heart’s beat synchronized with the rhythm coming from my uncle’s room. The handle simply wouldn’t turn. Then, I just pushed through my door and the noise stopped. It felt like my heart stopped as well.

The weird thing was that my uncle’s door was closed. My mom never closed doors behind her; especially when she expected my sister and me to help her. I was hesitant, but I managed to call out to her. The word “mom” cracked as it left my lips, leaving me sounding worried as hell. But, there was no response. Timidly, I asked if she needed help but the answer was the same: silence.

I won’t lie. I was a bit freaked out by this part. Leaving the door closed, I ran up to my mother’s room and threw open her door. There she was, lying in her bed eating sunflower seeds. And there I was, panting like a dog in the scorching heat. Obviously, she looked at me like I was crazy and I had to come up with some bullshit excuse as to why I almost took the door off of its hinges.

This meant that she was never in my uncle’s room and I had no idea what was making that knocking sound. I had to get it over with. I went downstairs and just opened the fucking door. I thought it wouldn’t be that big of a deal, but the knocking continued. His room was mostly as he left it. We took a couple of boxes off the shelves in the closet but most of them were just filled with random cds and movies and shit. He had a lot of Beatles memorabilia on his bookshelf though so we decided to pack those things up and save them.

But there. He was. On the bed.

Or what was left of him. His heart. I meant his heart. His heart was on the bed. There it was in all of its bloody glory, drenching the sheets in a bright red coating of freshly made icing. It was tied up by all these vines that seeped through the rug and snuck through the cracks in the headboard so it could keep him fastened there. He was stuck here. His heart was the thing making the knocking sound

I realized that I was on the floor crying. Somehow, that knocking penetrated my ribcage, making my heart beat in time with his. It was like the world was expanding so wide before my eyes that all of the inconsequential details I was made to believe about the world was stripped away in one fell swoop like a stubborn bandaid. It hurt. But I could see him.

Dion. My uncle. Wearing his signature tight blue jeans and dirty green Beatles sweatshirt. Even though he was smiling, I couldn’t stop crying these purely disgusting sobs that shook my entire body. Before he could do anything, the dam that built up in my heart of regret, pain, and sadness finally broke.

“I’m so sorry… If only I had come when the screaming started. I was scared so I just stayed in my room playing poker like a fucking idiot. Maybe if I wasn’t so stupid and tried to ask if you were okay and needed help, you’d still be here. I wasted so much fucking time just standing outside the door. The handle just wouldn’t move. I was so fucking scared. I’m sorry. I ran to my mom as fast as I could. I didn’t know you were dying. I didn’t know that the last time I’d see you would be your lifeless body hanging off the bed.”

I felt his hand on my back like he was hugging me. It only made me cry worse. I’m pretty sure snot was coming out of my nose at this point. It was really disgusting, trust me.

But, after awhile, I started feeling comforted, like his hug was healing all of the scars and wounds inside of me. It was this full body heal and it made all of the pieces of the world fit back together. They were broken for so long.

“Are you okay?”

My mom was standing in the doorway, looking down at me crying on the floor. Slowly, I pulled myself up and hugged her as hard as I could. I wanted to transfer that same full body heal to her. After all the shit we’d been through these last few months. First, my dad passing on Christmas and now my uncle following about a month after. We all needed some healing just about now.