Not Funny

tt's been a week since my friend, my agent of eight years, passed away from complications of COVID. He was a good man and I will miss him.

The wheels of a relationship we spent years building are coming off one at a time and it's kind of surreal. What happens next is always a convoluted question. It means nothing in the context of end of life, yet we cling to it for assurance. Afterlife? Life goes on? Live of Pi? Life and Pie? Those left after have a hard time with the finality of it all.

In my life I've spent much time working with death. I was glad to be out of it. Still, the one thing that never changes is how hard it is on the living. Paperwork, health risks, heart risks. I know his family and they are in it.I simply can't think of more senseless busy work.

If it were possible to say goodbye and set him afloat on a burning rack of sticks I think we all would. That's not the world in which we live. More's the pity. I think those ancient rituals might have a leg up on our sanitary services. Alas, we are who we make ourselves.

Here and now should be about who he left. How he left. What will be remembered. Because his net spread out wide. It's so gratifying to have seen the wellspring of good wishes, earnest prayers and genuine concern he elicited. So many friends, so many clients, so much love. Prayer chains up and down the state asked for healing. And, who knows, maybe it worked. After all his Christian family is comforted knowing the next thing he'll see is God's face. Glorious.

Next Thursday the living will bid adieu. Somber Thursday. But, it's another chance to share the community he built and remember his positive influence on a whole host of people. We'll be sad, but that's okay. We'll hear stories, and that's okay. We'll commune in loss and that's very good.

I said early on I'd try and confine this forum to my career, and certainly finding new representation is career. But, I don't want to just now. I want to wait. At least a little while to say goodbye to my friend, goodbye to normal as it was, before I get back normal as it will be.

Next week will be soon enough.

Thanks for reading. I'll try to be funny next time. Blessings.