I saw a stranger with the number 56 tattooed on their arm. It made me think. Why would somebody tattoo that on their arm? How is it significant to them? Here are some possibilities I think I will put in ‘This is not a book’.

On the 3^rd day after my father died I was sitting on the beach. I think I had cried everything out of me and I was completely void of everything. I had an epiphany somewhere between 5 and 6 in the afternoon. I wrote a list on pink paper. I came up with 56 reasons to stay alive. They are what I hang myself on. There are how I sustain myself in this crazy world

When I was 56 years old. That was my year. Some people say you only get a few truly beautiful moments in your life. Some will only have a few hours. Some will have a few days. I had a year. 56 years old, living by the beach, in a little shack with Benny and Louise. That was my year. All the beautiful moments wrapped up between the January and December of 1985. And if there is anything in the world that I want to burn into my skin its that year.

56 is the name of a song by The Rovers. ‘56 answers run through my head. 56 words that where never unsaid’. I cried my self to sleep every night to that song. Until I moved out of home when I turned seventeen. And I wrote it here on my arm to remind me of where I came from and I think ‘life can only get better’.

I was a mailman back in the 80’s. I delivered letters all over the west end of the city. One day somebody at 56 Westly rd wrote me a letter, taped it to the top of their mail box. Thanking me for being their mailman. I wrote one back, and we ended up writing to each other for months. My entire life became those letters. She told me all about her life, and I told her all about mine. I told her things I had never told anyone. I think I might have loved her. But one day, the letters never came. I found out she had moved. I never even saw her face. I think she was the one. I don’t even know her name, she just signed her letters, love, 56.

56 days. That’s how long it took for my mother to die. The doctor gave her three months, but she only lasted 56 days. There where so many things we should have done. She wanted to go skydiving. She wanted to see the northern lights. So many things I wanted to say to her but now they are just trapped inside of me like butterflies. So I have 56 on my arm. To remind me that life is short. That I might only have 56 days left, and my mother wouldn’t want me to waste them, like she did.