A Sort Of Goodbye

Dear Old Friend,


Thank you.

I feel like nothing I say here will come close to describing what I want to say to you...but try I must. And try to write this even at the risk of looking like a fool. Bravery in the face of absurdity is something I learned from you and your sister so why not give it a try now. What is more absurd than writing a goodbye to someone you have not talked to in decades? I'm not too proud to be a fool.

You and your sister were like surrogate parents to me when I was young. There hasn't been a time in my life when I didn't use you and her as a yardstick to measure and weigh any decision I have made. I have never felt apart from either of you. I have tried to live my life according to the ethics and common sense I learned  from both of you in each of your individual and unique approaches to living and making decisions. Even how I have voted over the years has come from discussions and perspectives from you. Next to my sister and Oma you are the two single most influential people in my life. You showed me how to live and how to think.

I consider that influence to go beyond time and space. I experience it to go beyond even physical proximity. I did not plan to accept your influence but that influence has infused itself on my life whether I wanted it or not. Your influence has endured.

It is the knowledge that you are going on a voyage that has inspired me to write this note  that if possible by some freak click of the keyboard you might find this post...I want to thank you. I also write knowing you will likely not see this and knowing that thats okay too. I did say these things the last time I saw you and for that I am also grateful. However, saying thank you does not have a limit does it?

I want to thank you for being one of the funniest people I have known. I'm funnier for it. Thank you for being so intelligent and curious about the world with intense arguments and ideas. I'm smarter for it. You have influenced my art work, my family life and my dedication to living in freedom. My life might have become very different than yours or your sisters but that is because I had different work to do. Mainly my life took a different path because I was terribly immature back then. I had a lot of learning, therapy and experiments to do to even begin to be as wise as you and your sister. But the struggle of learning made deliverance all the sweeter.

I am grateful to both of you because I was able to live a good well-adjusted adult life and practice film and art and writing free of any burden of the material world. I had the confidence to make art and live without answering to censorship, fear or social constructs. I got that from you. You are one of the most special and talented storytellers I have ever known. You made me a better storyteller. And, perhaps oddly,  I have never ever felt separate from either of you as your individual personas...helped build me. Love is bigger and more powerful than rules, laws, transgressions or distance. It really is eternal and goes beyond even consent or participation. You and your sister are in the structure of my thinking right into my life, work, meaning and emotions.

Thank you for being part spiritual and part ethical parents. You both made me a better parent and that is probably the most important lesson you gave me.

Love can not be legislated. Love really is everywhere. Love really does not answer to society's norms,  politics or intolerance. Love really is stronger than any other sensation and it is transcendental and transformative. You changed me. Thank you for teaching me this. Love, Candy.