If you don't hear from us after Friday, it's because we're dead. And Bryce really is psychic.

Lots of death thoughts going on around here. Yesterday was the anniversary of John's dad's death. The family really didn't acknowledge it; there is a bit of (this is going to be a shock) dysfunctional weirdness associated with certain aspects of how John's dad was or wasn't memorialized. It's ugly, actually. Suffice it to say that John was never all that impressed with a shoe box at the top of his mother's closet being the final abode of his dad's ashes. I know, right? He's so amazingly picky. (To be fair, the ashes have now been moved. To the inside of a statue of a baby boy. In his mom's house. NO, that's not creepy at all.) Anyway, for some reason I always remember the date because I had only met John's dad once, and my attendance at his funeral and wake were only silently and begrudgingly accepted by the family who still saw me as the quite scandalous young girlfriend they were hoping was just a phase John was going through. I've missed so much by not knowing his dad; he would have liked me more than any of the rest of my in-laws have, that's for sure. He was cynical and laid back and worldly - all traits I would welcome with wide open arms after the mind games I've endured from the females of the clan.

Also, I'm running out of clothes that are appropriate for the 90-degree "spring" weather we're having right now. Rummaging through my closet and muttering under my breath this morning, I came across the outfit I bought to wear to a funeral almost two years ago. The funeral was for a friend of mine who had died in a car accident on an Oklahoma turnpike. On Father's Day. With her husband and three-month-old baby. Her neck was broken and she died instantly. Her three-month-old had two broken legs, her husband was in a coma for two weeks and suffered minor temporary brain damage, two broken jaws, a couple of smashed knees, and event amnesia. The husband and daughter are both fine and healthy now...at least as fine and healthy as they can be without a third of their family. I wore the outfit, but couldn't stop associating it with the funeral, and I kept thinking, "geez, what's with all the death thoughts lately? why would I wear this today after the father-in-law death anniversary yesterday?" and then I'd shudder.

At dinner tonight, Bryce was using one hand to poke canned peach squares onto his fork, held in the other. I couldn't stop staring at all the peach juice dripping off of his fingers, onto the table, imagining that sticky, stubborn layer of nastiness I was going to have to wipe up later. He interrupted my internal cleaning map-out by saying, "are we going to die soon?" Yeah. If anything will snap you out of your agonizing over peach stickiness, it's your four-year-old saying "are we going to die soon?" in the same tone of voice that he'd say, "are some dogs purple?"

"No, we're not going to die soon, why do you ask?"

"Because we've already been alive for a really long time."

"Oh. So you think we've been around long enough now?"

"Yeah. I think we're all going to die tomorrow, actually."

"What? Why? Why do you say that?"

*shrugs, eats another peach* "Because. We've already been here a really, really long time."

"Well I think we're most likely going to die once we're really old. We still have a lot to learn."

"Hmm. No. No, I already know all the stuff."

"You've only been around for four years!"

"No, I've been here a lot longer than that. I think we'll die tomorrow. Or pretty soon."

Okay, WHAT THE HELL. As I was typing this, a FUNERAL HOME AD JUST CAME ON TV. It's prime time right now, all the other commercials are for car insurance or fast food joints. I've never seen a funeral home ad on this channel before in my life. Say some Hail Marys for us, people.