Occasional Letters to Death #4

Visiting the Departed

Death is before me today:

Like the recovery of a sick man,

Like going forth into a garden after sickness.

Death is before me today:

Like the odor of myrrh,

Like sitting under a sail in a good wind.

Death is before me today:

Like the course of a stream,

Like the return of a man from the war-galley to his house.

Death is before me today:

Like the home that a man longs to see,

After years spent as a captive.

Neil Gaiman, Preludes & Nocturnes (The Sandman, #1)

 

Dear Death,

I spoke to four dead men today,

Their graves next to each other in my grandmother’s garden

I loved them all to varying degrees in Life

I love them to even more varying degrees in Death

The first man I spoke to was my grandfather

The degree to which I loved and love him is small,

As small as his mindedness was

But I was glad to swing by and say hello

The second man was sort of an adopted grandfather, I guess

He hung out at my grandmother’s house a lot

We all just went along with it

We all went along till he just became part of the family

I loved him in a pleasant sort of way

I still do

He told utterly fantastic stories that you could tell he utterly believed

He had an old-man smell that I liked

The third man I spoke to was my uncle, my Malume,

My mother’s older brother

He gave me some of his OCD

When I shine shoes or iron shirts, I think of him

I loved him

Even though he always shouted at me

I miss him and I am mad at him

He died in such a stupid way

Tuberculosis!

Treatable

He just had to take his pills

The last man I spoke to was my Malume too,

My mother’s middle brother

I loved him very much

He didn’t deserve it

He was trouble wearing a charming smile

We were all at peace the day he died too young

In Death, we all love him more than we did in Life

Occasional Letters to Death #3 / Letters to God #8 / Chill Sessions with Joy #1

"Fool," said my Muse to me, "look in thy heart, and write."

- Sir Philip Sidney

Hello,

Death, God, Joy,

Remember me? It's been a while since I wrote to you last. I apologise. Life happened. I should be thankful for Life, I guess.

Death, you've been sticking quite close to me these last years. I won't even front, your call has been very enticing and I'm hoping to find a way to stave you off a while by writing these letters. I'm trying for that Drake More Life kind of thing.

God, how are you? I sure have strayed far from the flock. I've been busy being woke. So, no time to talk when I don't even know if I believe. The prodigal son returns it would seem.

Joy, I've been very far from you, indeed. You think it would be okay if we talk every now and then?

"Loving in truth, and fain in verse my love to show"

I'm 32 now! I've has some success and just a whole lot of failure. I got married. In that time I've caused my wife more tears than laughter.  I miss laughter. I became part of a team writing children's books. That fell apart. I joined a team working on some EduTech software. That relationship fell apart. Life's been hard but I really want to change that for the better. So, I'm thinking that I need to sit down and put my thoughts to paper, make that commitment.

I want to fall in love with Life. I'm hoping that turning to verse or, rather, turning to the written word in general, I can explore that love in fall deeper into it in the process. I'm 32 now and can feel that this living in the light of past mistakes isn't working out for me. I need to do better and to be better.

I've picked up my pen again and hope that these sessions with all of you result in me being a better person.

Let's talk again, right? This is good, right?

Charles

Letters to Life, Death and God: Things We Lost in the Fire

Dear Life, Death and God,

I hope you guys are well. I haven't written in a while. I've been busy living, dying and questioning everything. Here we are now, though, and I want to speak to you about loss. I love Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy as you know and I feel like a loser in the sense of Peter Quill's speech near the end of that movie. I am someone who has lost a lot of things. My friends and family are losers in this sense too.

Loss is a large part of the human experience. We lose things like keys and cellphones and that can be annoying. We lose friends and lovers and that can be heartbreaking. We lose people to you, Death and we succumb to grief for ourselves left behind and for them and whatever mysterious end or new beginning you offer. As humans we cannot avoid loss; it seems to be one of the prices we pay for the gift of Life.

Loss has been on my mind a lot lately. I look at my life up to this point and realise just how much I have lost and when I weigh it all up against everything I have gained I'm not sure how I feel. Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful for everything I have and my life is rather charmed in its own weird way. It seems that I've had to lose quite a great deal to get to where I am now. Life seems to be very much like a game of chess in which you sacrifice pieces to win the game. I have been thinking about those pieces lately, the things we lost in the fire as Bastille puts in their song. I miss my sacrificed chess pieces because I loved them and I'm a mildly OCD hoarder. Matter matters to me. I miss all my old books, video games and people.

My reference point in life is always stories, especially in the form of books and like any reader worth their salt (I prefer pepper though) I collect books and fill them as much with memories and emotions as they fill me with good stories, bad stories or just outright weird ones. I have lost many books on my journey. I left some of them with good people that I know will love and cherish them and I have left some of them with people I'm sure won't even care what happens to them. I don't know, I'm just feeling nostalgic and sad for my old things and friends.

To tell you the truth, guys, I'm really just scared of what the future holds for me. I'm almost 30 and have not even achieved half the things I dreamt about when I was 18. I live in limbo, I avoid my family as much as possible except now people are dying and I feel guilty about avoiding them and the girl I love lives on another continent. So, yeah, I'm a little scared moving forward. Life, your fire is hot and I don't know whether I will be consumed or refined by your flames.

Lots of people are doing so much better than me and I won't lie, I hate those people. Fuckin' hard working, intelligent, never-give-up-guts assholes! Lots of people are doing worse than me and I'm lucky that I have a job that I like (and seems to like me), my family still tolerates my shit, I have money for food and beer, I have a girl who loves me, I have friends that like me or at least are nice enough to pretend to like me (pretending goes a long way) and though I have moved a million times in the last two years I have a place to sort of call home. Still, fuck you guys a bit for being so demanding! Life with all your shit, Death with you crazy efficiency (you're probably German) and God for all your silence. Fuck me a bit too, though! You guys are not the biggest asshats to me. In fact I'm a huge asshat to myself in many instances.

Anyhoo, that's just what I'm thinking and feeling at the moment. I just feel like a loser right now and just wanted you guys to know and maybe get a hug. I like hugs.

Occasional Letters to Death #2

Hi Dee,

I'm gonna go with Dee because I think you'd like that, what with the whole whimsical outlook that you have on... er... life. Tell me, what's the thing you have with the hotdogs? Now, don't get me wrong, I respect hotdogs as much as the next person but I'm not all that crazy about them. Give me a good boerewors roll on any day (yes, even Tuesdays when I'm ironing my socks) and I'm ready to go. I'm not sure where to but I'll be ready nonetheless. Well, I guess the one thing I won't ever be ready for is meeting you in person - boerewors or not. I've been down with sickness of late and that made me think of you a little. Look, I like you, I really do but I'm just no ready to meet you yet. The thing is that you're very pretty and I'm shy. I wouldn't quite know what to say and I'm usually a guy who knows what to say. Anyhoo, whatever, we'll see how that goes whenever you decide to pop over to get me... It'd be nice if it was later rather than sooner though.


A colleague lent me her copy of Endless Nights and it was quite cool reading about you and all your siblings. I must say that you are fairly patient, waiting for those people who locked themselves away from time on that island. I guess you have some time on your hands though. You must introduce me to Destiny! I think he's my new favourite of your siblings. He likes books (well, the one book but it's the book that contains all the stories ever told) and I like books so maybe we could get along. I have a friend, Sleuth, who's very much like him in demeanour so I can hang with him. Let me know hey. I like that guy. Also, tell Dream to cheer up a bit. He's been giving me odd visions at night of late. I don't mind odd things but lines need to be drawn. I really am not sure why these lines need to be drawn as opposed to painted or embossed but it is what it is. Be a good girl and tell him, why don't ya.

I plan to read more of Dream's stuff but Destiny needs to stop being so passive and also get stuff because I'd be very interested in reading his stuff.

It's been a while since I last wrote you and I apologise for that. It's a good thing that you're so patient. It's Friday over here and so I need to rush off to do Friday kind of stuff like go to the beach or whatever. Mainly whatever. Have yourself a good time hey and I'll write you again soon (the human version of soon, not the Endless one).

Later days,
Charles

Occasional Letters to Death #1

'It's funny but on good days I don't think of her so much. In fact never. I never just say hi when the sun is on my tongue and my belly's all warm. On bad days I talk to Death constantly, not about suicide because honestly that's not dramatic enough. Most of us love the stage and suicide is definitely your last performance and being addicted to the stage, suicide was never an option - plus people get to look you over and stare at your fatty bits and you can't cross your legs to give that flattering thigh angle and that's depressing. So we talk. She says things no one else seems to come up with, like let's have a hotdog and then it's like nothing's impossible.' - Tori Amos, Introduction to Neil Gaiman's Death: The High Cost of Living

"Mr Gaiman portrays you as a beautiful young woman with life bursting at the seams ..."

Hi, Charlie b3an-Champ here.

I like you, I think. I'm not sure with all the reaping you do on a daily basis. I like the manner in which Neil Gaiman embodies you, at any rate. I also like the manner in which Tori Amos speaks of you. I feel slightly uncomfortable at how cool you are when it's all said and done. You're even cool in Supernatural, what with your old-money swagger, that haunting song by Jen Titus as an intro and your cool conversations with Dean about reaping God. Gosh! You're even cool in Steven Erikson's The Malazan Book of the Fallen as Hood - who waits at the end of every scheme. You're supposed to be life's greatest enemy, the Grim Reaper and all the other scary personas. Mr Gaiman portrays you as a beautiful young woman with life bursting at the seams instead. Take the Greek pantheon as an example, no one likes Hades. He (you?) doesn't even like himself. If he were not Death he'd kill himself. Anyway, I digress. What I was saying is that I like you and that I'd like to talk to you once in a while. Even though you scare me. I want to learn from you about life. Ironic, I know, but I think you know stuff. I talk to God a lot and figure I might as well learn from you as well. Are you okay with that? We'll just talk. I'll buy you hotdogs. I bet you'd like that.

Old-money swagger.

'I know Death is somewhere inside of me. She was the kind of girl all the girls wanted to be, I believe, because of her acceptance of "what is." She keeps reminding me there is change in the "what is" but change cannot be made till you accept the "what is."'

I want to learn this, accepting "what is". I'm no good at that. Last year I was seeing a creepy raven haired Eastern European therapist who was good at listening to me. You'd like her. She listened more than other therapists because she was still new. She never really helped me resolve any issues but we talked and it was cool. I told her I have issues with dealing with reality and she agreed. The point is that even though I have a hard time dealing with reality it doesn't have a hard time dealing with me. Thus I must learn how to accept "what is". Then I can start being made into a better being.

"Nor was he known as a melodramatic god - the Lord of Death was reputed to be, if anything, ironically modest."

'Over the last few hours I've allowed myself to feel defeated, and just like she said if you allow yourself to feel the way you really feel, maybe you won't be afraid of that feeling anymore.'

I'm uncomfortable with feeling defeated and I don't like indulging the feeling but sometimes the machine just breaks and I descend into the circular ruins of my blasted mindscape. A dear friend of mine, Shannon, once told me that I need to 'feel' what I feel. That made me sad because if I 'felt' all I felt I fear I should burst. I'll give it a go and we'll see :).

I'm certain you and I can have good chats. I'll hit you up hey and I wasn't joking about those hotdogs, you'll get them.

Be cool.