Blackbirdan online journal of literature and the artsSpring 2018  Vol. 17 No. 1
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an online journal of literature and the arts
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OBIT

Victoria Chang—died unknowingly on June 24, 2009 on the I-405 freeway. Born in the Motor City, it is fitting she died on a freeway. When her mother called about her father’s heart attack, she was living an indented life, a swallow that didn’t dip. This was not her first death. All her deaths had fallen like snow except this one. It didn’t matter that her mother was wrong (it was a stroke) but that Victoria Chang had to ask whether she should drive to San Diego to see the frontal lobe. When her mother said yes, Victoria Chang had the feeling of not wanting to. Someone heard that feeling. Because he did not die but all of his words did. At the hospital, Victoria Chang cried when her father no longer made sense. This was before she understood the cruelty of his disease. It would be the last time she cried in front of it. She switched places with her shadow because suffering changes shape and happens secretly.