I have been having a really hard time writing this. Between my last post and this one, a friend of mine I had known for many years passed away. My grief is so loaded with all the things I want to say, but it doesn't feel right to say them right here or in this moment. I've tried to write this post several times; my friend was a complicated, gifted, flawed, amazing walking contradiction of humanity who strove with their demons and grappled with world-sized heavyweight sorrows.There is simply no thing I am capable of writing, right now, that would do even a semblance of justice to their memory, and to the void they leave behind. There are many parts of this that, for me, are intractable from my hang-ups and guilt about not being a better friend, but using my friend's death as an opportunity to publicly work through personal issues seems anything but reverent of their memory.
But its been two months, and I don't know how to do it. I suppose their memory looms large over this blog for me, because we had discussed it in one of our last phone conversations. They could not have been more encouraging of my writing, especially in a moment when I needed to hear it. They could not have complimented me more with their actual excitement about it. What is extending yourself through these creative acts but asking for validation? I had theirs. It made me excited to return to this blog. It made me want to live up to all the nice things they said about it.
But its been daunting and crushing to think about. I used to say I don't deal well with death, but who does? I don't grieve well, is what I really mean. I don't want to move on. I want my dead people to be alive; even moreso when the living world has become this screaming existence of artlessness and despair. It would be less unbearable without them.
Its also been exquisitely difficult to manage the cognitive and emotional dissonance of feeling a lot of sorrow, grief, and regret, and recognizing how ancillary my feelings are to the central tragedies that follow in the wake of my friend leaving this life. Their daughter will only know them through secondhand memories. Their wife has lost an anchoring presence in their home, in their family, in their love story. It more than breaks my heart. Its bewildering, and frustrating, and overwhelming. I want to shout mountains into rubble, and, also, never get out of bed. I cannot fathom how this feels for their widow, for their family -- from inside the daily life from which they are now missing.
I was blessed to be in more contact with them over the last year; I'm wounded, now that they are gone.
In memory of Hawthorne,
I hope you are finding answers, making music, collecting rocks, and enjoying a painless peace as a soul in freedom from and victory over this physical world. I miss you. There was still so much to talk about.
-p
