Anthropology Times

Letters to My Tutor…

My dearest Simone,

It’s been a little over two years since the death of my good friend and it’s starting to be/to feel that he is dead in the way that my (paternal) grandmother is dead, in the way that my great-grandmother is dead. It’s not exactly the same; it’s as if he’s just crossed over a threshold, and time is no longer out of joint. The elements have done their work. The pain is less sharp when I pass his building and in its place there is a warmer, deeper feeling, a more than (>).

It’s not as though I frequently engaged in fantasy that he was secretly still alive, but still I feel as though I’ve given up on that in a way that leads me to believe that I did engage that fantasy on a subconscious level. It’s a matter of going from that sense of “I wish I could tell him this or that” to a sense of his being part of that cosmic consciousness that knows.

I can’t immediately outline the cultural model guiding my thoughts and feelings on death. That’s to say that these transitions in my thinking about my friend’s death are not part of any conscious belief system. I feel as though I’m observing my family, my small Mississippi Delta town, my Southern community in my thinking on death.

My best regards,
S.