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What would you write if you had to write your obituary? Today, right now. What comes to mind? What memories, days, moments? What people and experiences? I realize, at first glance, that the idea of writing one’s own obituary while still alive may sound morbid. It’s not, though. I promise you. It’s a needed reminder of who you are, of what truly matters. Because it’s your life and there’s still time to write it. Before I have to.
Nothing much to say after the cursory chitchat, what do you do, what was your last vacation, have you ever considered suicide. Fine, I made up the last one.
I was floundering badly, watching myself, a kind of out-of-body experience where I was repulsed by this person. Me.
On occasion, I write my own obituary. I know what you’re thinking. How is this guy single?
Your identity is more interesting than your biography. That was another one from one of the self-help books or the podcasts or talks that Tim sent me. Aren’t we all more than our résumé? Aren’t we more than the college we attended and the places we’ve worked? Aren’t we a million things that are so subtle and nuanced that most people never see them or experience them? Aren’t we also that moment—that nothing moment—on a cool spring day when, stopped by a lilac bush in bloom, by the breeze moving the leaves and full violet flowers, the hint of the perfume smell in the wind and the sound of
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I snorted and was enjoying myself on this rainy, cold Sunday night where I was imagining my own death, a sentence that, upon review, I fear does not convey the frivolity of the moment.
neither lazy nor diligent (potential gravestone epitaph?),
I’m tempted to report you to HR. I’m getting a Diet Dr Pepper. Do you want one?”
Maybe words don’t matter much. Maybe it’s all in the unsaid.
Women talked close, staring at each other, touched, hugged, said what they felt, said I love you out loud. We sat staring straight ahead, never touching, speaking more in the pauses, and yet still, if you listened closely, said I love you.
What he gave me was … he made me see differently. He made me see that it all mattered. And I worry … I don’t think anything matters to you anymore, Bud. And that kind of breaks my heart.”
I was falling. What I didn’t know yet was that a man in a wheelchair was waiting to catch me.
Maybe we’re all obituary writers. And our job is to write the best story we can now.”
“Are you dead? My mother said you were dead.” “I was. I’m better now.”
The thing is, though, when you listen too carefully, too closely, day after day, to that pain, to that keening, it can take a toll. Because to really listen is to feel it, isn’t it?
Our father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Do the words hold meaning after so many recitations or is it simply the cadence, the rhythm, that offers comfort?
I felt as if I were in junior high, at a dance, the long walk over to a girl—Beth Creehan, in my case—to ask her to dance. (Beth said no and then I had the four-hundred-mile walk back, my friends laughing. Fortunately, these memories don’t stay with you longer than seventy or eighty years.)
Anyway. I did that for a while. But then I kind of wanted to commit suicide.” “Banking. Who wouldn’t?” “No. I literally wanted to commit suicide.” “Oh.”
You can’t kiss a stranger but you can want to.
“In my limited experience, I think we tend to flee pain. It’s natural. Physical pain. Too hot, too cold. We fix it. Mental pain. Same thing. We … drink, take drugs, obsess about sex, about food. Trust me, as a half man. I’ve tried all of it. A smart person once told me to sit with it. To stay in the pain.”
I walked toward the water, as if pulled to it. The ocean stops me in a way few things do.
Tuan had been reaching out, in ways that, for Tuan, were signs he was thinking of me. Which is to say he would text links to bizarre deaths from history. This was how he checked in.
I mentioned Columbus Day to him and he almost had a stroke. ‘Bro, that’s like majorly racist. It’s Indigenous Peoples’ Day.’ I wanted to say to him, how can a homosexual be a racist?”
“Where are you? What are you doing with yourself?” “Well, I’m going to the funerals of strangers. And shortly I’m about to go swimming in freezing-cold water with a woman I just met.” “I don’t have words for how unraveled your life has become.” He hung up, abruptly, as was his way.
Tuan called as I walked into the building. He was waiting in the lobby but hadn’t seen me yet. “Where are you?” Tuan asked. “Disney World. I’m nude, running from Goofy, who appears erect. It’s a nightmare.” “Sounds quite wonderful to me.” I tapped his shoulder and he jumped. “You’re a cretin,” he said. He then looked me up and down, a sour look on his face. “And you’re wearing Dockers?”
“Tell me,” he said, looking out the window. “I heard a wonderfully macabre rumor from Buckley, who’s so gay he annoys gay people, that you’re dead to the system.” “It’s true.” “I couldn’t love this more.”
“We need to open to life as it is, rather than how we want it to be. And how we want it to be this constant state of painlessness, of ease and safety.”
The great revelation perhaps never did come. Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark.
I know a little bit about fear. All I can tell you is that it’s a lie. It dares you to look it in the eye. Because when you do that, when you stare straight at it and don’t flinch, you own it.
“I’m guessing you might know something about … depression.” “All there is,” he said, still smiling. “Hard to describe to the uninitiated.”
How rude of the dead to die. How selfish. Wherever they are, no pain, in eternal darkness or wondrous afterlife. And here we are, tears streaming down our cheeks, the knotted stomach and clammy palms, a feeling akin to falling, in a dream that won’t end.
