Death and All His Friends

Sitting on our bench in the park, listening to the Finding Nemo soundtrack. She loved that film—nobody could root for that stupid clownfish the way she could. Now she’s gone. Permanently.

The wind moves through the treetops and I genuinely cannot get my head around how someone who meant so much to me in so short a time can be pulled out of my life in seconds. She had so much still ahead of her. We had so much still ahead of us, together. Theories, conversations, thoughts that will stay unfinished forever—the exact kind that were supposed to change things.

Since yesterday I’ve been carrying a grief that is, strangely, also full of energy. Full of hope. As if Mona passed me the life force she’d always carried so visibly—the one I always admired in her—handed it forward with her death. I hear her voice now in every decision I make. I feel her in how I move through the world. In memory I can still taste her sweet skin. Nobody can take from us what we had together.

I will never, not ever, forget you, my little Monalein. With you gone, Berlin—no, the whole goddamn world—is short one brilliant, restless thinker. I’ll carry everything you taught me during our nights out, keep you and everything you stood for alive in how I live. You gave me new courage. And I miss you already. Wherever you are now, I hope you’re changing things there the way you changed them here. Take care of yourself, little columnist.