You’ll never get this missive. You’ll never read it. I’ll never send it. If I could, where would I send it? Heaven? Two reasons that would be folly: I don’t know if you made it there….secondly, the address is too general.
You were a Godly man in your own way, but I can’t imagine “Heaven” being anything a scholar like you would have envisioned.
And then again, maybe it IS all that–gilded with fluffy marshmallow-like clouds and Charleston Heston lookin’ mother fellas perched in repose. You know, everything you wanted, but nothing you expected.
I have several confessions to make here. Read well, this won’t happen again.
I wept after learning you had died, then I cried for other reasons when I learned how you died, four days later. Your heart, the detective intimated, exploded. It “was a mess in there” he quoted the Medical Examiner as saying. You ate eggs snd hard salami and all the things that would assail the healthiest of hearts. You typed and as far as I can tell that was your only exercise. Did you want to die? No, but I don’t think you were too terribly keen on living. It had been years since I’d seen you, but you were grossly unhealthy from what I was told and having been a reporter and seen other cases of a person’s nonchalance to life, I can imagine what you looked like, outwardly and inwardly…..your emotions and how simple, yet how complex and gnarled they were.
I’m hard pressed to pursuit additional facts about your death, much less about your life. I know you were deceptive, not so much regarding who you were but how you lived. I was always 95 percent sure your existence was a lie based on a few truths. You weren’t a very persuasive liar. You were brilliant at being closed, impatient and selfish. You were so fucking removed from things that would have mattered to emotionally healthy adults. In retroeoevt, I resent your ignorance, your lack of finesse, like every hsckneyed Cher re-recording since 1972.
But if we’re playing the home-game confessional, here goes: Your blsmrbfirst. At one time , you probably, maybe loved me as much as you could, but you would never allow anyone to love you in return. You would loathe the responsibility. I don’t understand that. But I think, I was also on an unhealthy road to learning how that process worked. People might think me unkind for saying this, but you would understand when I say Imwould never be free of you any other way. It seems so heartless, yet so correct.
I marvel at aspects of your life, howvyou disliked me the most when I was at my most human and vulnerable. How you seemed to care more me when I was cold and hard, but you were a failure there, buddy. I could tell when that veneer was phased, but it never happened that often and rarely was Inever the one to scratch the surface.
Those who know, might say the last ten ten years completely wasted my time. I don’t see it that way. You weren’t a waste of time nor were “we”. I benefitted from your cruelty. It’s was the kind of cruelty only you could dispense, the only kind from which I could learn. Gratitude is half the battle in the war which is waged in the name of late and hate.
I’m not allowing myself to be overly consumed by your dishonesty, perceived or otherwise. I don’t know why, but I won’t allow it. Maybe it’s because I won’t be duped again. Maybe it’s because I’ve wizened up and will live better, longer because you lived your’s so horribly wrong. You were exemplary to me for the best and worst reasons. You’re gone and the method by which you left is no longer important. True, I hated the way God said “enough” to you, but I don’t suppose there’s ever a stunning way to exit this mortal coil.
Ask Lupe Velez.
But but no one should be as alone as you were. It pains me to realize that your death went as as unnoticed as your life. I laugh now when I think you always responded to many of my more uncomfortable queries with “no one cares”. That was your pat comedic response. Perhaps, I should have given your pessimism more credence.
This is the last private thing I’ll ever say to you publicly—this came to me in a semi-lucid dream last night. I was wrapped In a blanket under the covers of the guest room of all places and I can’t for the life of me understand how or why I went there, a place I rarely go on my waking state. But I was there and I remember this from my dream. Even though I was in a strange bed, I felt so warm and secure like a baby bird in a nest in the lower branches of the tree outside my front door. I felt as though I had but one purpose: to stay there and let nature and nurture employ their will. My fate was simple and explicit– I was to become full grown, mature, able to take one move away from the nest and have options, all of them positive, if I,so choose.
And I choose to live…Like I think you would have wanted.
Feathers, my friend. Feathers. That’s how I’ve decided I’ll know you’re here and there and all around me, at good times, during bad times when I feel too small, when I feel too huge. Despite your absence in my life, I expect to receive enough feathers to outfit a nice-sized flock before my venture here ends.
So, fly fly…..fly away, efwm; I’ll be magnanimous in your passing and urge you to soar on air that only yields to the most special wings.
And someday, I’ll fly away home, as well.
Until then.
