Michelle Cross put this little bundle of love together as a memorial to her deceased friend. She probably wouldn’t call it an untimely death, because it is absurd to think that death is ever timely, or even of time. (It is, if anything, always on time). In digging through her old diary and reprinting all the pages that mentioned her friend, she admits that she slightly extinguished her malaise. For the rest of us, who were not directly effected by this loss, this memorial serves another purpose. We have the benefit of on looking and empathizing, and reflecting on our own losses. This little tributary is also incredible for its sensitivity, and for what we learn about the writer and her world. Remember the dynamic that individuals developed going through school together? Your best friend in grade seven, a person who at the time seems infinitely and indelibly in your life could be forgotten after one summer of separation. Or the first kiss you experience, which at that moment has everything to do with the person you’re kissing, becomes just another item in the list of your life’s “firsts” that happens to be attached to a name. Or the sadness of “feeling lonely for no one”. There are layers of meaning to what Michelle has put together. It is sad, and it is soothing.
zine supplement / Michelle Cross / $.25 + postage / 920 Pine Street, Kamloops, B.C. V2C 3A2