By: B

... in no particular order...

1. Be in the kind of pain that clogs the very pores of my skin

2. Wish that I could re-live one moment of my life over and over and over again

3. Regret a billion more moments in a span of a second

4. Yearn for the day I actually am able to sleep all night

5. Cry so much that I finally hear my heart break

6. Wish the Qess would not talk so passionately about my father

7. Beg my husband to tell me that it was just a bad dream

8. Edit my father's obituary

9. Haunt what is left of my soul with scenarios about his last moments on this earth

10. Listen to a fithat while my stomach is tied in hemorrhaging knots

11. Wait, very still, in darkness for any sign of him looking down at me

12. Listen calmly to platitudes from strangers."Lesachew'imma malqess aygebam"

13. Make such a nuisance of myself that my father would have capitulated and stayed with me longer

14. Wish I had held his hand tighter as he walked me down the aisle

15. Wonder why it seems that there are a hundred hundred days between the arba and the semanyia

16. Think of inoculating myself with painkillers just to survive the semaniya

17. Never know when I would laugh again and mean it

18. Listen to my brother read our father's life history at our father's gravesite

19. Hold back my tears so tightly that my skin would have to crack for relief

20. Utter "weinE abate" in the middle of crying

21. Utter the words, "My father died"

22. THINK OF SAYING THE WORDS "AbatE arefe"

23. Hear the words "ababa arefe"

24. Hate myself for saying "ababa arefE"

25. Wish I could maref from leqso

26. Write this damn piece!