It's been a while but I occasionally visit the graves of dead friends, most of the old gang having succumbed to overdose, fatal traffic accident, or gun violence. I pour a little libation over them, take a swig myself, ask how they've been doing, tell them the latest news about so-and-so and such-and-such. They never answer back, but communing with them like this makes it seem as though they've not gone so far away.

Relatives the same way. I pat their gravestone, as if I were stroking my grandmother's hair as she lay dying in a hospital bed, and offer a few words of encouragement.

"It's okay," I say. "It's all right."