This begins a series posts from a work in progress: The Forty-Nine, an upcoming novel in letters. Excerpts of each letter will be posted in sequence. To browse them in order from the beginning, jump to Letter #1. In the lower right of each post, you can then advance to the next.
Dear Joan,
Dear Joan. Is that okay? A part of me instantly opts for Dear Ms. Didion to nail the deep respect I feel for you and your writing, but since we’ve been having imaginary breakfast together every Wednesday at six for well over a year now, little tête-à-têtes with your grief book between us, one of us choosing a page, I figure I’m good diving into this missive on a first-name basis. Especially since we’re invisible to each other. Ghosts in the morning light. Coffee (sometimes Coke). Croissants (I get to eat yours, yay). Magic.
Here’s some news you’ll be glad for:
Progress. This morning I had to meet with two men about the details of Miguel’s death. I’m beginning to see what you mean by the whole bureaucratic drama of post-mortem. Death is such a production. If dying were a heart transplant, the procedure would be the most important event in my life since birth, but to the surgeons, it’s just another engine block replacement. Routine to them, unique to me. When it comes to death, these funeralistas see mortality day in and day out. No big whoop. Just a lot of routine paperwork. It’s weird seeing how the uniqueness of my husband’s death is completely lost on them yet why shouldn’t it be? They don’t have the backstory. That’s what dying is about for the living, right? The backstory. Seems odd that all of life becomes a mere preface. I won’t bore you with the millions of details (coffins, obit column inches) except that the spiritually minded Medical Examiner (a very hot man named Emily, as in Dickinson) pointed out that death might just have stopped for me and moved on, so I need to get my shit together and do some real soul-searching in the departments of love and freedom. More later on this. Head spinning.
