Friday, October 5, 2012

A selfish request

When I was an editor at Legacy.com, there was a lot of 'sanitizing'. Making sure the content was acceptable and didn't offend anyone, and making sure the guest books didn't have trolling or angry bitter messages from people with grudges. I remember deleting a whole bunch of thuggish posts from a guestbook, only to have a family beg to keep them...Because he was a gangster, and they were proud of i
t. Another was a memorial to an alcohol-fuel racer who died rather explosively on the strip. His family celebrated that death, saying 'he lived as he had died, one tenth of a second ahead of everyone else'.

Where does this all come in? I don't fear death. My beliefs don't have an afterlife so much as a long-form conversion of matter. But my story is important to me. The unedited one. The one with the weirdness, and the quirks, and the hobbies. Also the one with the betrayals, abuses, and rough edges. I was a difficult son, I was a terrible brother, in relationships, I hurt as much as I was hurt. But don't edit it. I love who I am now. Warts, folds, silver and all. When I die, if you have a grudge, tell everyone. If you remember the time I fought you until you had a seizure, tell that story. The night we fucked while you were tied to a tree in the middle of fair? Tell it. How you realized I was gay when I swanned around in my 'superhero' costume that was a toga and paper wings? -TELL IT-. Find my embarrassing websites. Display that hidden art collection. Find those people who are -actively- joyous at my death. Remember that I still owe you money, or you never forgave me for sleeping with your godmother. Mix it with all the good and noble things. Mix it with the good deeds and kindness. Because the more you mix the good and bad of me, the more real I will be after my death. And the longer, and truer my story will be.

No comments:

Post a Comment