Letters to the Dead

Dear ________,

Letters. They are meant to be hand-written on yellowing manuscripts, to be stuffed into an envelope that smells like all the old fragrances your grandmother once used. They are meant to be wrapped up with ribbons and dropped off at someone's doorstep. Letters are beautiful and a few simple words speak volumes. 

Unfortunately, this letter will never reach you. Even the most heart-felt written words can never reach the dead. You can scream and yell out to the skies, but your words will only skim the horizon between life and death. 

That's the nature of letters - they only go so far. Yet, it isn't a crime to write to the dead, it isn't a crime to voice thoughts. After all, those who are gone forever are those who were most treasured. 

I'm trying to keep this old-fashioned so please bear with me and read on. Now when you look at us, from wherever you stand, I know it will be nothing. Life in its entirety seems so small and so insignificant now that you have tasted the mysteries of Death. What's it like to look down at us from behind those golden rays of the sun, from up above those silver strands of clouds? A patch of green, a drop of water, the signs of life - they all must seem so tiny. 

What are we but pawns on the vast chessboard of life? If you're playing games up there with God, it must be amusing to watch us all. While we fuss over the little problems, you must be relishing the taste of sweet bitterness - how grand a purpose must you serve to reach Heaven? Do you miss living on Earth? Do you miss living at all? 

Caesar once said,

Cowards die many times before their deaths.

The valiant never taste of death but once.

Of all the wonders that I yet have heard,

It seems to me most strange that men should fear,

Seeing that death, a necessary end,

Will come when it will come.

I wonder how many times I have died worthless deaths even while my heart was beating frantically in fear. I wonder how many times I have failed myself and many others by not living.

You on the other hand, have finally sacrificed your existence and have left the world, in a braver fashion. It's true that those who have embraced death peacefully are indeed so much braver than we who struggle to live. 

When you were alive, I thought I knew all about you. Now that you're gone, I spy questions arising, like glass bubbles from the ocean - so many of them - what was your favorite this? What was your favorite that? Did I even know you at all?

I knew you as a kind person with varied interests, while another person knew you as a completely different avatar of mischief. How is it that two people who knew you, ended up knowing two such contrasting personalities? Then, what were you like in real life? Was I fooled and are you looking at me from up above and laughing heartily at my stupidity?

Now that you're gone, I feel like I never knew you at all. I may have become a closer friend, I may have gone on to understand you like no other - or I may have even come to love you. But what's lost is lost and you are one of them. 

Every time I explore a new interest, I come across something that you may have liked. It enthralls me that even after you are gone, I am coming to know more about you. I stay on those pages for hours. I read what you read with a keen interest. I read between the lines because what I knew about you...I just never knew enough. The unspoken words and unheard conversations, I want to live through everything that could have happened, so that I can proudly say – a someone close to me has left the world and yes I knew so much about them.

Witty talk, heart-to-heart talks, heck even Facebook threads won't be enough. All I'll know is your talent in bantering and your use of great analogies. Will I ever know how you felt deep within? Will I ever unravel the mystery that is YOU?

Of all the people around you, I think I was the one who felt your loss the most. Or maybe everyone feels that way. I will never know because I will never ask. I feel loss, not because of the philosophical connections I had with you - more because of our simpler bonds. Like for instance, you had been the first friend I had spoken to. We spoke about books and movies and art and ideologies. When I ventured the wrong way, you tried more than once, to pull me back. I remember each and every moment like it happened yesterday. You spoke to me - you loved me, like you would love a friend.

Before the day you died, I met you and you asked me once again - "are you in love"? I said "no, because truly there are greater things to life" and you agreed. I am happy that before it all ended, I was able to confess what I really felt to you and sharing that one moment of truth with you, before anything else, was my infinity. 

I know despite all the emotions you must be feeling, right now, there's a smile on your face. You're probably shaking your head saying, "that conversation meant nothing". But I'd like to believe that it meant something. I'd really like to. Because now that you're gone, what you may have felt is an open mystery - a something akin to space - dark and full of a million possibilities. Yet there's light, yet there are stars and one of those glistening fireballs may carry a legion of hope. 

If this letter reaches you, it will be a fine miracle. I don't believe in miracles because honestly, I have never witnessed one. But I'm waiting for the day this reaches you somehow, and I know you will smile down at me...and I'll probably feel happier. And maybe, just maybe, I may start to believe in miracles after all :) 

With love, 
Me