As we were about to leave my uncle’s house, almost devoid of anything of meaning a few weeks after he died, I noticed the mirror. That’s the thing about mirrors: you don’t really see them until there’s nothing for them to reflect. It was on the living room wall and was in dark brown, almost black wood, the edge of the frame picked out in a muted golden pattern. It was pristine. My uncle wasn’t really a sentimental man and didn’t really keep much in his house. Certainly not at the end, anyway. Cancer kept him housebound, and then COVID forced him into care, where he stayed until the end. I saw him in his bed, the day before he died. Stick-thin, eyes closed, mouth open, rasping, ragged breaths indicating his body shutting down as the end of life medication did its job. I sat by his bed and I cried and cried.
The mirror hangs in our living room now, above an art deco cabinet, complementing it perfectly. Sometimes when I look into it I don’t see myself, but him. What are we if not reflections of each other, our lives, our memories?
I miss him terribly.