To All The Departed People (And Cats) Who Show Up Sometimes

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My grandfather was an executive at RCA back in the shadows of the long-ago mid-twentieth century. From his time there, he accumulated branded goods — RCA playing cards, cufflinks — and like other archaic family possessions, they were treasured. This past Christmas, my mother decided it was finally time to disperse some of these relics.

Whenever my grandparents enter the room of our family gatherings — be it via relics or reminiscing — these two long-dead come alive. It’s like they never left. Even though memory is a constantly evolving entity in our brains, their memory in mine keeps to its regularly re-programmed storyline: I love them.

They aren’t gone entirely, then. They’re still alive in neurons in the brains of the ones they loved and laughed with and hugged. Sometimes, I write them a letter to see how they are and send it off into the abyss. I know to address it “Grandma and Grandpa, Main St., The Abyss”. This will ensure its successful delivery. Then, I pay to have it rocketed off in a commercial postal rocket, and in a few days, I wave to the night sky, knowing they’re out there somewhere reading it happily.

Recently, I wrote:

Dear Grandma and Grandpa,

How’s it going? Mom gave me one of Great-grandma’s ceramic mixing bowls for Christmas, and I don’t know what to do with it. While I don’t want to shove it away on a shelf in the storage closet under the stairs, I also don’t want it to break from regular use. I’m faced with a conundrum, a choice. Any words of advice?

Are you playing bridge wherever you are? What about Up and Down the River? We haven’t played that in eons. It’s Hearts mostly now.

I can still see you both in my mind. Grandma, are you cooking something right now? Grandpa, are you finally glad I crushed your cigarettes that one time when I was a tween? I’m sorry, but I wanted you to live. I was surely right, you were stunningly mad, then I was beyond mortified, and the memory lives on. I miss you both.

Love,

Stephanie

I can send letters to my deceased loved ones because Blue Origin has a good price on postal service to the abyss. Otherwise, maybe I’d think twice. But that sounds crappy. Why should I hesitate to spend a little extra money to let my loved ones know I love and miss them, that they still matter after all these years? It’s not as if in regular life we’re always walking around telling each other how much we love them.

Which sounds short-sighted to me. Which also means we need to rectify this lack of foresight via the interstellar postal service well after the fact.

Sometimes, though, I like to write to my long-gone simply to touch base and ask advice. When someone leaves, an advice hole opens where there once was a sturdy mountain of wisdom spouting forth. I’d be in no-man’s land without these letters.

I wrote to Kitten recently about the grocery store, asking her opinion on a personal matter.

Dear Kitten,

First, meow. And purr. And how are you? It hasn’t been that long since I last wrote, but I have a question. I still have a slight sinking feeling when I pass the cat food aisle in the grocery store. Do you think that’s normal? I do feel much better than I did when, you know, back then, but I think of how sweet your voice was every time I peek down that aisle, and then, bam — no Kitten.

Time is funny — not in a humorous way, but unknowably so — and as it inches on, I have reminders of its progression, which inevitably means the “D” word. I don’t want to think about that, but here’s a question I never thought of: do you ever think about it anymore? “D”? I mean, once you pass on over, where’s the need? It’s a done deal and finally knowable.

Am I getting close?

Tell me your thoughts in a whisper the next time I go to buy milk. Tell Mama cat I said I love her.

Love you — 

Stephanie

Letters to the dead isn’t a new concept. I figure if it dates back thousands of years to ancient Egypt, it must date even further than that. To me, it’s a logical outcome of wanting to communicate tangibly with the intangible. The act of it seems to bring communication alive, and that’s a positive when it comes to death, one of life’s dualities — alive, dead. One or the other.

But we want a third option, an in-between space where we don’t have to commit fully to that duality. This is why abyss letter delivery was born. The need was always there, but it had to wait for suborbital commercial rocketry to come around.

Not long ago, I wrote a letter to Mary Oliver, whose poem, “A Summer Day,” hangs taped to the wall next to my desk. I like its final question: Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? On the infrequent occasion that I stop to read the poem, my throat always catches at that request. So, I wrote to her, as I’ll do.

Dear Mary,

It’s me again, and I apologize. I’m not stalking. In my defense, I doubt you’re even reading my letters. You must receive plenty.

If you wouldn’t mind, though, regarding that last line in your Summer Day poem, the question you posed — still roaming the minds and lips of those here on the other side — I wanted to know, what did you do with your one wild and precious life? Did it remain wild? Or did you make plans and follow through, or is the word “plan” more along the lines of “want”? But then again, maybe what you’re really asking is “what are you just on the verge of doing?” As if “plan” is momentum only a millisecond away.

I’ve been writing letters to my loved ones because I want to tell them things I never thought to tell them when they were alive. The problem is that sometimes I lived this wild and precious life without planning, and now maybe I regret that. Maybe wild and precious are on two different trains, traveling through, indifferent toward the other. Precious requires tending to, while wild is feeling the flow and speed of the wind. Both are parts of life. Both ask for different investments.

Anyway, I didn’t know who else to share this with. I hope you read it. I hope I feel your response somehow, one day.

Thanks for listening,

Stephanie

I haven’t gotten a response yet to my great-grandmother’s ceramic mixing bowl issue. For now, it sits far from harm, in limbo. Kitten will respond soon, as she does — such a good kitty. And Mary Oliver? I’m not holding my breath, but at least I haven’t gotten any cease-and-desist notices yet. I can’t tell if the abyss is an orderly space or more on the wild side. I’ll find out one day, and when I do, if you don’t mind, would you write me sometime? I’ll write you back in my own way. I promise.

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Have a nice rest of your week, friends.