02/24/2017, 11PM

Mrs Wilkins,

    Okay, we landed, and I just got back from your house and now I’m at the May’s (which, by the way, is super trippy; it’s your house but backwards, which I know you know, but it’s still super trippy) and my mind is in a weird place because I just saw you on the dining room table. I tried not to look at your ashes but Jake was just so, blasé about it, like, “there’s Mom!” and I just really didn’t like that. I don’t like thinking about your body or whatever it is now. Even a grave would have been more symbolic, because then at least I can look at a tombstone and try not to think about your rotting body underneath. But now, I just saw you, and you were surrounded by pictures of when you were young and by a whole lot of shells, and you know how bad I am with emotional stuff. I don’t like any of this.

    Remember the last time I visited? It was before Christmas, Jake and I set up the Christmas trees and we looked at all your meticulously organized ornaments and you told us stories about your mom making them and I made fun of my mom for her glittery broken balls. And then I burned myself about five thousand times with the hot glue gun trying to glue your shells down onto the shadow board (which is a southern term) and now, Mr Wilkins wants me to have one of them. I feel bad because I kind of blew him off, but I’m so tired of crying and being emotional and I know he has more of a right to be sad then me and so I avoided the awkwardness. I want the one you organized, but I feel bad asking for it.

    Talking about shells, we’re giving some out at your memorial service tomorrow. I don’t know if you remember, but when my mom and I visited last time, you had a whole bunch of shells you thought were too ugly to do anything with, the ones from Carolina Beach, so you let us take them home. I wrote “Love, Bye.” on all of them, with your initials (JGW) and the year (2017) on them, so everyone who comes can take home a little piece of you. I kept like, half of them for myself though.