And it’s true, namaste, that if you can see it then it already resides within you, albeit perhaps in one of Rilke’s “locked rooms” or “books written in a very foreign language.” But it’s there, and it’s there for you to call forth its riches. Otherwise you wouldn’t recognize it, could not see the glittering thing that delights you in another.
But Charles, your shining depths were so hidden from your view, locked away so far down in some subterranean bunker, the journey to which no doubt seemed insurmountable and absurd. Still, you found access to it all the time, in the way that you so generously gave of your time and your love and your honest, vulnerable self to others. The whole world could see your vastness and your depth and your glittering gold. We were granted access to this treasure within you that you were, in some twisted, horrifying, cruel trick of a way, completely unable to access and enjoy just for yourself. It was in the giving and the loving and the lifting up of others that you could use it, but perhaps not hold it: you were a conduit by which the greatest gifts of the universe, heaven, creation—could be given and enjoyed down here on imperfect earth. How badly I wanted you to be able to access your own locked room! How cruel to be denied access to one’s own riches.
I don’t have a conclusion here. There’s no “therefore, everything happens for a reason” or some similar idiocy that doesn’t help anybody and which is patently untrue. What happened to you is unspeakably horrific and I would wish your suffering on no one. Least of all, you. And yet you suffered so much, so cruelly, and for this I have neither peace nor answers.
It does not seem to me that your death was necessary, that your plight, finally and gruesomely laid bare, can serve some greater good or serve as some shit cautionary tale. I don’t know what tale to tell. We were still writing the story. We had only just begun. Your death is not a gift and we are not better for your having died. We are worse. I find no comfort in platitudes served up by well-intentioned unenlightened folks doing their best to dip a toe into the most terrifying of waters, the End: we gain nothing from your death, we only lose, there is no bright side. There is no bright side. I have learned no lesson. Charlie could have taught you a few, though. But, Sir, I have not the language nor the wisdom to impart these myriad untaught lessons you leave in your wake. I continue to wish deeply to share you with new souls that I meet, the ones where my first thought is Y’ALL WOULD BE BFFS. The magic people. I have found them, and I want you to know them and for them to know you, for all who knew you became better. I still have no conclusion. I am not wise. I do not know what to do today.
You were burdened by the whole universe, you had to see the entire universe in everything, the connections you made across vast swaths of time and space were stunning. You could not shut that off, though, ever, even just to stop to refuel your tank. There was no reprieve from your brain. It was endless and breathtaking but what a burden to bear. No one can maintain his life like this forever. It’s exhausting. It uses too much of your life all at once, uses it, burns burns burns until there is nothing left. Burns itself, then. What an unjust fate. What an unfair finale. For you, the least deserving of such an end. I have no answers. There is no conclusion. There will never be any beauty in this and there is no bright side.
There is no bright side because there is no vantage point from which this makes sense or seems right. My best friend and confidant and sensei and my favorite blessing. My brother. There is no peace in your passing; there is more mourning than joy in your mystery. The painful perception that others have grown weary of my grief is not entirely imagined. I can empathize: I am exhausted. And yet I cannot foresee a day when my grief and my soul are anything but inextricable. There are no answers. I will continue to do my best to live the questions.
CRA 5.16.86-3.17.06
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