For Aleta Greene

As I got dressed for your funeral,
I stopped to read the funeral home
obituary. It docked three years
off your life, up-ending everything
I thought I knew about our
entwined lives.

Suddenly, you were a year younger
than me, instead of the two years
older, I'd always known you to be.
And though I did the math 
in my head and on paper,
it just didn't add up.

You had been my assigned 
Big Sister in high school,
since my freshman year. 
But you'd have had to graduate
when you were only twelve
and a half! And I was nearly sixteen!
I nearly had a heart attack,
trying to square that circle.

As I drove to the Service,
I pushed the thought out of mind.
Focused on the traffic and 
obstacles ahead and behind.

After striding into the chapel, 
making small talk and looking for your body,
I suddenly realized that 
there was no physical You
to say goodbye to. 

Where were you? In the ground
or in a box of ashes, or worse,
a case study for anatomy students?

As I read your official obituary,
I let out a sigh of relief—
that you really were my Big Sister,
that you were really 
two years my senior. 

Yet, after all the accolades 
and hymns for you, 
the Alpha and Omega, Amen,
I couldn't shake the feeling 
of things not adding up.

Too many unsettled questions,
too many leftover hurts 
remaining between us.