Why we write

This is my aunt. She looks real happy in her little kid pics like this one. I don’t know a whole lot about her except her name was Joanne but everyone called her Joan, she was my dads favorite sibling, she died a couple weeks before I was born, and she died from a slow heart attack while her husband stood there, waiting for her to die before he called the ambulance.

It guts me when these photos pop up on my timeline, thinking about how her whole life and body are defined by the story of her end.

I think this is why we must write, make art, tell our stories. We must.