Writers And Death

Without any prompting at all, I can assure you that writers, as a group, have much the same reactions as the general public.  Recently we of the South Bay Writers Workshop received some bad news.  Here follows the correspondence as we reacted.

To explain, one of our members had been conspicuously absent and previous correspondence only elicited the news that he was having some health problems so I took keyboard in hand and asked if we could do anything productive to help?

Hi -
I've been diagnosed with acute leukemia.

The MD gives me six months.  I get blood transfusions tomorrow and start chemo on the 28th.

At least I made 92!  Not much else anyone can do.

CHEERS (name)

Naturally I circulated this grim news to all of the other writers.  The replies:

From a 38 year old MD, "Please let him know that if he needs some help, I can be available as well."

From an 88 year old fellow writer, "Sad to hear your news.  I wish you the best treatment and an easy passage.  Let me know if there's anything I can do to help."  

I read this and started howling with laughter.  The two juxtaposed together - "easy passage" and "if there's anything I can do to help" struck me as incredibly funny.  When it was pointed out to my fellow writers, they all roared, too.  "Do not let this man near your bedside!"

At yesterday's meeting we discussed this matter and I was delegated to ask if he is writing about this experience.  I wrote:

"A consensus (consisting of female, male, male and me) decided among ourselves (without consulting you, of course) that since you have given us such wonderful stories about your younger years, contributing to the history of America, that you would be doing further service to write about your experiences now.

(Female) wondered aloud  what it would be like to know that (supposedly) one's days were numbered and that the doctors knew those numbers.

I volunteered that one could have a wonderful time re-writing one's Last Will and Testament on a more or less daily basis.  "You were rude to me yesterday; Grandma's silver is now going to cousin Louis."  That kid of playful jab to get better service.

(Male) told us that when he was a Sea Bee in Viet Nam, that when the call for blood came on the leoudspeakers, he took his time getting there as he is terrified of needles.  We all laughed at him, as is our wont.

I would onlyu recommend this if you are actually dying although if you wrote a great, long piece and didn't die, you wouldn't have wasted the material.  It could be turned into a musical comedy!  No good writing is ever wasted.