Death Sucks

 Elisabeth, the late wife of my friend whom I mentioned in the previous post, probably would have disapproved of that post. Certainly her husband David, my close friend of many decades, whom I met in drama club in high school in the fall of 1980, would have disapproved, if know him. 

I don't know how Elisabeth felt about religion in general. I recall her mother was a devout Catholic. They lived in Sacramento, a large mixed-race family of many brothers and sisters. Her late mother was Phillipino, I think. Her father was Dutch-Indonesian. Elisabeth rebelled against her mother's religion in part by moving to San Francisco in the 1980s, living in the thick of the gay community in the mission district. Like many childless liberal women, she adopted the gay community as her children, and was fiercely protective of them throughout her life. That's my impression at least.

David I know to be a very strong atheist who tolerates very little "magical thinking" about religion. At least that is how I remember him. I haven't corresponded with him much over the last decade, and have not seen them at all since 2014, which the last time I visited them in the Bay Area. 

It was heartbreaking to remove myself from their lives in 2016 when I left Facebook. I knew I would not receive news about them anymore. They were very active on Facebook, and very forthright about their opinion of people who supported Donald Trump. They were not the only ones of my friends like that. I left Facebook in part because I wanted to preserve my love for them, which transcends politics. I didn't want to read the things they would inevitably write. They would not even know that they were talking about me. By this time, they had probably learned the "sad truth" about me---that I was one of them. I doubt my friends were curious about me at all, but sometimes even fringe subjects like yours truly pop up conversation when people get together. Certainly I know it would have been juicy gossip to share, to tell about my dive into what they would have considered some kind of psychosis. 

I loved Elisabeth for who she was, no reservations. I have nothing against her for her politics. I am glad I spared myself having to read anything she might have said about me unknowingly. It lets me have the great feeling of charity towards her, and mourn her, without the slightest dint of anger. Of course I hate it that it required an estrangement, one that lingers between my friend David and me.

I wrote him an email after I got the news, expressing my sorrow and giving my phone number. He has always been a popular guy, and the condolences will flood in on social media and in person. Maybe I am envious of that. When I go, hardly any one will notice at all. But I would not change places with him of course. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that Elisabeth is gone.

I sent David a card. He has such refined tastes that I struggled while standing in the card aisle of the neighborhood grocery store for one that would not offend his tastes, even in this state of mind of grief. Finally I picked out a tasteful blank one. For the message inside I used a heavy black magic marker and just wrote, "Death Sucks."