Echoes in a Hollow Space

Random quote of the day:

“Hope and imagination are the only consolations for the disappointments and sorrows of experience.”

—Italo Calvino, Six Memos for the Next Millennium

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this random quote of the day do not necessarily reflect the views of the poster, her immediate family, Siegfried and Roy, Leonard Maltin, or the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. They do, however, sometimes reflect the views of the Cottingley Fairies.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.

Dear X:

My mother says I have to write this sympathy card to you on her behalf because “I’m so much better at that sort of thing.” It’s difficult enough to express my own complicated feelings regarding the death of F., let alone trying to channel what I think my mother wants to say. F. deserves more than platitudes, but that’s all that seems to come out of my head. The enormity of her death, the way she chose to leave this world, the guilt at thinking I should have known, I should have been able to sense things, or help her somehow, some way even from 1000 miles away. Our complicated history. Our complicated, complicated non-communicative history. It all clutters up the stream of thought, the flow of writing.

But my mother has assigned me this task. Because I am so much better at these things.

Another opportunity to feel as if I have failed.

But it really isn’t about me. I must remember that, at the very least. It’s about this sorrow, and the inexpressible nature of such sorrows. It’s about words being hollow in the face of such circumstances, about them dropping like pebbles in a metal bucket because there is no richness, no roundness of sound when it comes to trying to express the anger and the heartbreak and the gut-wrenchingness of a decision to leave this world, a world gone irrevocably valueless.

There are no words.

Dear X:

There are no words to express my sadness at F.’s passing. I have struggled to come up with something to say to tell you how much I will miss her, and how much I wish I could comfort you, even though I know I can’t comfort you. I wish I could hug you and tell you it will be all right. It will be better, eventually, but never all right again. There will always be a patch of shadow over the brightest day, but as time passes

Dear X:

I’ve been thinking about you and your family so much. I miss F. and wish I could talk to her again and tell her how much I love her, but I believe that somewhere, somehow she knows that. If you need anything from us, don’t hesitate to ask.

All my love.

Mirrored from Better Than Dead.