A good man is dead. And it feels like there should be some mechanism by which I can scream that at the sky loud enough to tear the universe apart. A good man is dead and everything should stop now. No jokes should be told, no flowers should bloom, no wine drunk except in the pursuit of some respite from the aching sore of its unfairness.
A good man is dead and the world should shut the fuck up and be mute for a while. Colours should bleach to bone. Gulls should drop out of the sky, stopped in flight.
A good man is dead and, for long minutes, I have forgotten how to breathe. I’ve forgotten how to cry; the misery that should rise is trapped somewhere in my skull, it’s taken a wrong turn and can’t find its way to my tear ducts. I’ve resorted to typing nonsense on a screen for fear that if I stop, I will break apart in the stagnant clutch of the moment.
A good man is dead and I am not. A man with beautiful children and a beautiful wife and a life worth living five times over. While I am older, smoke thirty cigarettes a day and think walking is exercise. He loved life and I do not. He lived in his skin and I ignore it. He was kind and smart and the loyalest of friends. How is it that his goodness did not buy him a quiet death in old age? When I have squandered mine?
It happens every day; this obcene imbalance. A good man is dead.
Powerfully discomforting words. When one mourns a loss often times we do not know what to say or how to comfort, thus the reason perhaps of the lack of comments on this piece?
I’m very sorry to hear about your loss.. be strong, be weak, weep, yell, celebrate happy memories..
I wish I had more powerful words to offer comfort.
My condolences, RG. Remember those good times and moments you shared. It is sad to say that, as we grow old, we have so many memories to share and so few to share them with.
Death is always more bitter for those left behind than those that shed this world behind. Personally, I tend to feel more obligation to pick up some of the torch or baton that they dropped in their passing, in spite of the hole in the heart that is formed in their passing…