13

The number of photos of you in my room. Your beautiful face, at different ages. All magnificent. They say you looked like me, or your father, or my brother. But you didn't look like any one of us. You were yourself - unique, inimitable, never to be again, never to get old. Usually I can look at you without crying, but not today. Somewhere along the way I equated your death with your magnificence. You were too big for this world. It's hard to see it as the random event that it was. And yet, it is. You didn't have to die. Your luck just didn't hold out. I always thought the 13th was lucky for me, because you were born then, on a Sunday. And you died on a Friday. Now 23 is forever odious.