A Letter from the Dead

Day 537.

I listened to a play on the radio by Peter Souter, Stream, River, Sea.

I chose it because it was about people in grief.

An accurate portrayal of the intolerance of bullshit and the comfort found in the awkward world of fellow grievers.

It was funny and it was heart wrenching, but it also offered a picture of a new way of being.

I was struck by the letter that the dead man had left for his wife and daughter, for he, unlike Luke, knew he was going to die.

The letter had instructions of how to be after he was gone. Instructions both funny and emotional.

How he had been happy, how he was grateful for his life. How not to be sad, and not to get a dog!

For Luke that would be sheep or chickens.

And so my mind turns to what Luke may have written had he had the chance. What would he have said? What instructions would he have had?

Not the “save the world” shit, but the personal instruction of how to mourn him.

George may well have hit that note on the lead page of Luke’s Facebook tribute: to not be lost in sadness, but to remember all that was good.

I will ponder this thought and see if I can write this letter, or at least consider, in truth, however brutal, what it may have said.