Bob, Where Are You?

I've known Bob Grumman, mostly through the mail, but also in person, for almost thirty years. In the early years, we handwrote and typed long letters back and forth to each other. We mostly argued, and Bob loved to argue. We just didn't agree on much, yet we had a great interest in the possibility of poetry. That included any kind of poetry, but especially visual poetry.

We are both intellects, thinkers, figurers, but we came from different intellectual points of view. I found him crazy; he found me crazy. It was a strange life.

But, today, I heard that Bob has died. I can't verify that he is dead, however, so I'll write only a few words tonight, before I write too much about him.

Or I won't write about him at all.

Meaning that the dead are never cried over. The living cry for themselves.

Bob's death, putative or real, hit me hard today. I didn't expect that. I'm, in some ways, emotionally distant, though not entirely, so I didn't expect sadness about a death. But I had it, and for many reasons. The biggest was that I had let the man down. He had died, and I'm his literary executor. Though Bob told me he was too superstitious to write a will until he was ready to die.

Once I asked him if I were his literary executor yet, and he replied,

You have been for ages: it says so on several notes I've taped to various book shelves and filing cabinets. If they don't work, I'm sure my family will pay you to execute everything in the house.

I think I need something more formal. Bob assured me that the two emails he'd sent to me should seal the deal. (I don't think Bob has legal training.) And then he reassured me with this:

But I'll try to remember to tell my sister, whom I'll probably make my executor, to let you archive. Unless you call my archive and archives.

I don't think he has archival training.
But I didn't worry about that today. I worried that Bob was dead (or might be) but that I had failed him, failed to save his papers, to save his legacy, or part of it. Felt grief for it tonight. Fought it by writing much about and for Bob tonight. Realized that I needed to force Bob to allow me contact with his sister so I could make sure she knew my role as literary executor.
Too worn out from the night to write anymore. Just to think, and think about thinking, and sleep. 
I'll dream of Bob tonight, and maybe he'll be alive in the morning. I don't know. And maybe I'll drive to Florida tomorrow to try to save his legacy. I don't know.
The world is too confusing for the living.
But if Bob is gone, I wish him well. If he is living, I wish him better.
And I'll keep trying to solve the problem of his personal papers.

But I keep remembering something he said to me in his last note:

My health is weird. I guess I'm okay. My cardiologist thinks I have a good shot at ninety. All my lab tests keep coming back normal. I still feel more sleepy-tired than I think I should almost all the time. Still reasonably active riding my bike and playing tennis.

How does a guy with "a shot at ninety" die without any known reason coming to us after only 15 days? That's the question I leave with you.
I'm always a skeptic.
ecr. l'inf.