Buzzkill.

Sometimes, when I am having a conversation, you come up. It usually happens with someone I have not talked to in awhile, and they don't know. They don't know that you passed away. So they'll mention you, casually, maybe as a little bit of a joke. And I find myself going along with it. Just pretending that you're still alive. Maybe even adding a casual comment or two. Because I don't know how to tell them.

I don't know how to say it, this lump of a sentence that stops all conversation and causes them to look at me with such pity in their eyes. "Actually, he's dead."