You Can’t Unsubscribe From Grief

For Cai

Replying All on the Death Announcement Email

On New Year’s Day, I got an email from an old writer friend announcing plans to end her life. Her life was already ending. This expedited ending-of-life had been approved by a medical professional. She was electing to die with dignity. Her death was scheduled for the following day. Like a hair appointment or a visit to the dentist.

It wasn’t an email directly to me. I subscribe to her newsletter.

Farewell, the subject line read. That was her voice. Grand and direct. There was no beating around the bush. Happy New Year! the email began and then: I’m planning to end my life.

After I closed the email, I tried to stop thinking about her, but that night, on the eve of when I knew she was going to die, I couldn’t sleep. I googled her name, read every article that appeared on my screen. Read all the hits that weren’t actually about her. The ones with her name crossed out that the algorithm insisted were relevant. Maybe it knew something I didn’t.

I read about all the diseases I was probably suffering from that had nothing to do with her (or the disease that was killing her), I read about all the new diet trends that would shed my hips of love handles (I hadn’t seen her since she got sick, but in her last photo she was rail thin), I read about a minor celebrity cheating on another minor celebrity and then them reconciling and then them breaking up and then them getting back together again (she loved the thrill of gossip)—I read everything in the hopes of catching a glimpse of my soon-to-be dead old writer friend.

A week later, I got an email from a literary magazine announcing the death of its co-founder. I did not know its co-founder. I just subscribed to the newsletter.

I read the announcement from the literary magazine as if it were the announcement of the death of my old writer friend because after she died, I didn’t receive such an email. Because she was not here to write one. Or to send one. Though she could’ve scheduled one. Which is a thought I’ve had more than once since her death. Why didn’t she do that? That would’ve felt so like her. Not so fast, it might’ve read. I’m still here.

After the newsletter announcing the death of the literary magazine co-founder, my inbox was flooded.

I am so sorry to hear this. May you and yours find comfort. Keep him close to your heart.

I didn’t email anyone when my old writer friend died because it felt like I didn’t know her well enough. We met at a writing residency in Wyoming in 2016. We watched the presidential election together: I baked cookies, she bought liquor. We only inhabited the same space for a handful of weeks. So, how can I justify the vacuum suck of losing her?

The day after the election, we sat at a kitchen table and talked about our bodies. About who they belonged to. About culpability. I remember us disagreeing. The strangeness of feeling so connected to each other and then realizing, suddenly, that we may not actually know each other.  

I cannot keep the literary magazine co-founder close to my heart because I did not know him at all.

Life is eternal! Your memories are the tap that keeps him living!

I think my old writer friend would’ve liked the idea of tapping a memory, like a keg or a maple tree.

Peace and love!
(The sender included emojis of a peace sign and a yellow heart.)

I don’t think my old writer friend liked emojis. I’m not sure of this, but I just get a sense. She was whimsical, and danced wildly before she got sick, and very often swam naked, but I think emojis might’ve been beneath her.

After the residency, we wrote each other breathless emails. She was fond of exclamation points and caps lock. She didn’t need emojis to let you know how she felt.

Hah! You crack me up! YES, I miss you too! GET OVER IT! Enjoy the super-moon tonight! We won’t see it here. Too cloudy . . . Boo!

It was cloudy here last night too, but now the moon is beautiful.

Send me your essay about the election!!!

Please stay in touch often. What else am I forgetting?

Hello Everyone!
(This was the first sender who acknowledged they were emailing multiple people.)

I am sending my deepest sympathies and wish peace and warm memories for everyone whose lives he touched . . . .

The co-founder of the literary magazine did not touch my life, but my old writer friend who just ended her own life via death with dignity did. She is the person who told me to: Go for it with my now-spouse. We were hiking through the rolling grasslands of Wyoming at sunset. I don’t remember the words she used, but I remember her insistence. That night, I booked a plane ticket.

In her Farewell email, she said that she “had a feeling she’d be returning to haunt a number of people in a good way.” I’m certain I wouldn’t even make the longlist of hundreds or thousands of people who meant something to her, but a part of me wonders if that email chain might just be a hello from her.

Not a hello for me.  

Maybe someone who loved her—who she loved—is also on that mailing list.

I don’t deserve a hello because in that essay about the election, I mentioned a conversation she and I had. After it was published, she wrote me an email with the subject line: good job—all lowercase—then said the essay was lovely and impassioned, even if I made her sound kind of prim. I apologized once and then twice and then we exchanged email after email. The last one from her read: I felt a bit betrayed. That said, I love you anyway!, then she signed off: Xoc.

And I never stopped feeling guilty.

I didn’t invent anything for the essay. I wrote it as I remembered it. But that’s the thing about memory. What it means to me is not what it means to her. And she’s gone now, so I’ll never know which version is true.

If she were still here, she would probably say: GET OVER IT. But the thing is, I can’t.

In Wyoming, we were supposed to watch the first woman become president, but instead, we didn’t. My old writer friend was supposed to live into her 90s, but instead, she didn’t.

In the interest of not getting emails from everyone on this list (which is huge), I suggest going forward we refrain from replying all about this news.

Be blessed and please unsubscribe me from your mailing list.

My condolences. Unsubscribe! Thanks.

Please do not email me.

Stop replying all. If it has a double arrow don’t press it.

I also don’t want to be part of this list anymore. While waiting for you to delete me, I will declare all your emails as spam. So, act FAST! Warmly . . . .

This woman is grieving. Do you have no heart? This could’ve been a space for healing and instead you’re bringing nothing but negativity.

Please unsubscribe me these emails are becoming very stressful to read.

AGREED. Please take me off this chain. I have a newborn at home and I really don’t need my inbox filling up with emails about death.

I do not like death. Please unsubscribe me.

On the first day of the new year, I thought about responding to my old writer friend’s Farewell email. The email that announced that the next day she was dying. I didn’t want to burden her with an email on the last day of her life. But she’d written to me. Well not to me, but to her subscribers, and I wanted to say something. But I didn’t know what.

Maybe I wanted to say: You didn’t have to forgive me.

Maybe I wanted to say: I didn’t deserve you. 

Maybe I wanted to say: I will do better next time.

Then I began typing.

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