I’m very angry at you for killing yourself, Mom. Sad-angry, not I’ll-smash-your-face angry. So I’m going to do what you always said when you got upset: “I want to write a letter to somebody!” Here’s my letter to you. Dear CeeCee: You died on October 13, 2013, after nine months of refusing to eat. Since…
The importance of not being afraid
November 6, 2013
Both my parents were afraid to die, but Dad was crippled with terror. It was simply not possible to talk to him about his death. He told me in all seriousness that until he was seventy-five, he honestly thought he’d live forever. I’ve never known anyone who thought he was immortal. The neighbors who used…
All parents die
October 31, 2013
Got an e-mail. What are you so upset about? All parents die. Indeed. All humans die. However, there are different ways of dying. Would you rather die in your sleep at the age of eighty-five, or would you rather be flayed alive at the age of thirty? I’m upset at the manner of my parents’…
Dead son rising
October 29, 2013
I belong to a very small club. A one-man club. Actually, I belong to several: I’m the only person to be screwed by five Web designers in a row when creating one Website; I’m the only person to have had a spontaneous recovery from total hepatic failure; and I’m the only person in the world…
Swimming at last
October 28, 2013
Dave, The Best Therapist in the World, told me that my situation was similar to a person afraid of learning to swim. It wasn’t water that scared me but emotion. Feeling deep emotions was terrifying. I was raised to think that genuine emotions were dangerous. This was a tradition on both sides of the family….
Vergangenheitsbewältigung
October 28, 2013
The Germans are great at coming up with words to describe the complexity of human existence. Schadenfreude. “The humor one feels at another’s misfortune.” Laughing when someone’s pants fall off in public, for example. Backpfeifengesicht. “A face badly in need of a fist.” Someone who’s got the kind of face you just want to smash….
A very hard night
October 26, 2013
It was a very hard night, the worst since Mom died. I listened to people on the radio discuss their experiences with evil spirits, being possessed, having demons make them look like old women, and all manner of meretricious claptrap. The host had that super-earnest quality, like he was trying his damnedest to get across…
Advice for survivors
October 20, 2013
I’ve heard it from other survivors of a death, and now I’ve discovered that it’s true: Your “friends” will dump you. There are lots of reasons. They don’t know what to say to you, the death reminds them of their own mortality, they’ve never even thought about death, they’re not used to feeling or expressing…
Good-bye, pessimists. I’m sorry.
October 19, 2013
My father Edward Joseph Wictor was the most pessimistic person I’ve known. His favorite pronouncements were, “It’s really scary” and “Nothing’s ever gonna get better.” Here’s Dad at the age of twenty-three in 1951, serving in the U.S. Coast Guard at LORAN Station Bikati. Dad being Dad, the only thing I know about his time…