THIS LETTER is the only posting I have on this Blog that was written by someone else...I want to be able to read it myself, when I need to have Courage beyond my capacity...hoping I can face my Life and my Death as he is doing now....

I'm posting something unusual today: the letter to just everyone possible, by a dear friend of mine, about his dying, which is going to happen sooner than anyone, even he, knows. This is the Bravest Letter I have every read. I am honored to be his Friend in Life and in his Crossing Over....

Here it Be, as He is: my dear, talented, Intense, and Alive Friend:

How am I feeling, Mr. Status? Well, pull up a chair...and careful of the questions ya ask.

I will write and share something with you all, but I am going to ask that you please not send me morbid inquiries. After all, it long been my belief that the devil is in the details. The details are unimportant at this point…

It’s an easy thing to look over another’s life and say, “I told you so.” Like B. Dylan once wrote, “backseat drivers don’t know the feel of the wheel…but they sure do know how to make a fuss.” No fuss is needed; nor will any fuss be entertained as concern. No, at this point, it’ll be greeted as icky Facebook voyeurism.

If you’re tight with me, then you already know the details. If not, then you’ll know where I’m at – and on the next ride of this wheel, let’s make a vow to stay more in touch.

Right. Was told years ago to stop smoking, and how it would kill me. And of course it wasn’t believed. I would live forever, as I always have. It was akin to telling a teenager to just wait until he or she is a parent – unfathomable, unthinkable. Well, so it was with me – try to convince me that I’d ever see beyond the age of 50…with this fucked up broken body I was given…and I greeted such news as the teen who’s future parenthood has been prophesized.

I will see a specialist in a few days, one I’ve known for years. He’s a doctor, and he’s a good one, a kind man, a compassionate man. But he is human. And dedicated men and women such as he do not like to think that someone got lost while on their watch. So, I know I’ll be told of the magic drug…over $1,000 a vial…that could have kept me alive and pain-free for many, many years. If only I’d stayed with the program…

But staying with the program meant that I’d never be free. I’d have to do this job that I do out of necessity, like a slave to health benefits and health care. And then I become no better than the weird mongrel government worker who called me a “sell out” for working *my* job while trying to advance the career of his “non-sell out” spooky wife who works for a lawyer’s office (glad the dude saved money on college tuition).

And, really, I should not even give such worthless dead weight consideration or time in this farewell. But we all run against such dead weight in our lives. We’ve all known their kind – they tell you there’s no Heaven, they tell you there’s no Santa Claus, they remind you with certainty there was never an Eden…in short, they kick you in the gut on the very day that your dog or roommate cat dies. You hope that they mean no harm or malice…for if they do, then scary evil. Nah, they’re just clueless and limited in scope/talent. It’s why they’d play “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” at the end of the night, even though they’re face to face with one who actually is a-knocking. Hell, it’s a lack of imagination and flexibility…it’s having to do an unrehearsed song on the spot. If imagination, flexibility, and being so rigid in one’s ways is where a person is at, then that person equals dead weight in this world, at this stage of the game.

But the universe has laws…and it will take care of such dead weight in its own way and manner. Always has, always will.

And the universe is scolding me in its own way…for a lack of faith. For not believing that life could be sweet in its golden years. For not recognizing the joys that would come from children who’ve grown into wise adults who have become as much caring and loving friends. For not realizing that someone very beautiful could still love you, even when your body is broken…so long as your spirit still soared.

It was a slow suicide in hindsight. But, c’mon, I lived through a head-on collision unscratched. I died on an operating table for 30 seconds, none the worse for the wear. My car rolled over into a ditch and the car…along with myself…came out without a scratch. I survived six major surgeries and over half a year residing in a hospital bed. I drank poison only to become immune to poison. I did everything I knew to be wrong, pretty much flipping the bird to every threat or ill-wind that blew a reminder of mortality.

My “heroes” were often of the “live fast, die young…leave a pretty corpse” variety. Of course, they now grow content with their millions in hidden, exclusive retreats in Connecticut, the Bahamas and Maui. But I was taught to believe the art…not the artist…so no hard feelings, Keith.

So, you’ve one year left…or “five years stuck on my mind”…what to do with it?
How to keep the fear of the ride ending from becoming so strong that you forget to enjoy the ride while still upon it? It’s harder than they make it out to be in movies and books, I can tell you that much.

Never lose faith…that will kill you more than anything. No wonder despair becomes the one sin in a good book that is not so easily forgiven nor rectified.

But an Italian dictator who was a horrible man said a truth, “better to live four years as a lion than forty like a lamb.” Flawed a man as he may have been, he was right. And a good, wise woman said, “If you live fast, you always die young...even if your body dies old....”, and how I wish I’d heard those words two, three or four years ago. Life would different now. Life might still seem endless.

But it isn’t endless. The ride ends. And I don’t know if we ride the wheel again. I don’t know if we rest on ice for a spell. I don’t know…and I hate not knowing. Always have. My whole life, if there was a locked door then it became my mission to find its key. Wish I’d applied that to my own life…instead of spending so many years encaged as a slave with the key right within my grasp.

Before my father died, he tried to open his mouth and tell me something. He had a look of fear in his eyes, as though he’d seen into the next world…and did not like what he saw. Or felt overwhelmed and unready for it. He couldn’t talk, so I’ll never know. And people find it funny when I say this, but his eyes seemed to say to me, “I understand, son, why you loved that singer Sam Cooke so much. I get it now…” In short, my old man died a soul man. Always knew Vallejo would have a positive effect on the old grouch. Ya can’t teach Sylvester Stewart (of Sly and the Family Stone fame!) without it having some sort of influence on you. After all, it is all connected. Nothing is random. Nothing is chance. There are no accidents, and there is no such thing as coincidence.

And why Sam Cooke? Because he could tell you that we were having a party…and still make it sound as though it’s bittersweet, like the second line of a New Orleans funeral. Because he made his do-re-mi as a gospel singer, but was still honest enough in the end to say, “It's been too hard living but I'm afraid to die… 'cause I don't know what's up there beyond the sky.”

Amen, Sam Cooke. Over on this end, I do not know what is more frightening. That it could be a permanent lights out/game over. Or getting to that place could be the most screaming painful thing that’ll make Jesus’s three hours on a cross seem like a walk in the park by comparison.

In other words, I don’t know what will be worse…the dead or dying part.

Really, I thought for certain I’d live forever. And maybe I will…in a song, in my children, in my students, in the ones for whom I did not burn every bridge or treat like dung (becoming more and more a rarity as I get older). Wish I could come back to tell you which is worse…the leaving or the destination. But when you go, no one follows… “that path is for your steps alone.”

Warts, flaws and all…I want it known right now – I have loved and have been loved. So, it was not, nor will ever be a wasted life. But it’s getting scary, and more so with each day.

So to Dr. Levy, my mom, my brothers, Miss Lindsay, my close friends, my roommate/bro Little Mate and others who’ve been good to me…I know where I fucked up. There is no need to say, “I told you so…” I’ve done it enough for all of you. If you want to be my friend, if you want to show a kindness or give some comfort… just help me exit with a bit of dignity. I am scared, and this comes from someone who tried to live with no fear…or “four years like a lion.”

Besides, I lived in a world where they had radio, Atticus Finch and Napoli's Pizza, Indian food, Christmas and Diwali. It's been a world of hearing trains at night, the prettiest gal in the world saying my name like a prayer, the most beautiful girl in the world calling me "Dad." It's been camping trips and sailing ships and sunny days in Mexico and the streets alight like Carnival...everywhere from home to abroad. Sometimes a never ending Mardi Gras. It's been a blessed and charmed life. Wish it could just go on and on and on...but my, wouldn't that make for a crowded world?

At this point, scratching and clawing in anger and fighting with the universe is just making a damn fool of me...and making me destroy the very things that make life sweet & worth living. And that's no way to die...or live.

love,
=B/.

and that is all he wrote....