Dear dearest,

There’s a schoolyard question that goes something like: “Would you rather know how you are going to die, or when?” The question is perverse, with both options becoming increasingly tortuous the longer you think. It’s easy to pretend that the question is hypothetical, ignoring how inevitable knowledge of both often is. For the people forced apart by circumstances, the quickly aging, the terminally ill, foresight of ending is inseparable from the end itself. We are all approaching finality of some kind. So if the end is unavoidable, why sit on it and think? 

The hardest move to make is to forget the imminent ending. Conscious distraction seems antithetical to every impulse of self-preservation. Approaching this volume’s conclusion, it is difficult not to get anxious about the future. I’m trying to hold on to what I lovingly know, not letting time-limits ruin remaining time. The end is nearing. But I am so focused on the now that when everything goes black — I just might miss it. 

Until our next last time,

Frankie Solinsky Duryea, co-EIC