When Grief Demands Its Audience (A “Dear Danny” Letter)

Dear Danny,

I found your obituary online tonight. It filled in some holes for me but not everything. The most important thing I found though was your death date—your actual one; not the date that Ash or Chris told me that you died—(It was sometime in November according to them and my memory but now I know the truth.)

October 28, 2021. Your death date. You were 26.

Daniel Solomon Malcolm.

It’s cliche to say you were gone too soon but it’s true, you were, though I don’t know how you died. I guess it doesn’t matter, does it? You’re dead. Does it really matter what method you took to stop breathing permanently? Maybe it’s best I don’t know considering my close acquaintance with that taboo subject.

I’m almost 6 years older than you were when you died. I honestly didn’t think I’d make it this far. I never anticipated seeing this age especially when I tried to kiss life goodbye. I had a plan (well, an impulsive decision) 6 weeks before I graduated college. March 24, 2015 would have been my death date had I succeeded that time; otherwise, it would have been February 11, 2019 but… I woke up. I think the only reason why I haven’t tried again recently is because I can’t find a foolproof plan.

Ha, the jealousy’s rising again.

How, oh how, did you do it, Danny?

Lukas Graham has this song called Not a Damn Thing Changed and it’s a sobering tune.

He’s right though.

Nothing changes after death.

People are still jerks, creatives still struggle to find their way in a world that values everything except that thing inside us that makes the soul fly, and self-inflicted abuse and grief shapeshift and are locked in a weird, cosmic, never-ending dance.

Where do we go from here?

***

Grief is taking on a new (well new to me) form recently.

I lost my job on Friday, the first of the month. I’m more sad at the loss of income and healthcare than the job itself. The job was so stressful it caused panic attacks, the beginning of professional doubt (that had been simmering under the surface for years before I quit Publix), and stress vomiting which I did not know was a thing your body could do but apparently it can. It’s probably best that I’m not there anymore.

But I’ve lost belief in myself as a creative, as a professional, and as a person.

I’ll kiss my potential for meaningful, skillset-matching work goodbye for the last time. I feel like nothing matters anymore, and I’m finding that I spend much of the quiet, night-time darkness whisper-screaming at Yahweh through tear-stained pillows for not separating my breath from my body. I’m sure you know how that is, Danny.

Additionally, I have a dual role now of “devoted daughter” and “emotional support” for my mother, who’s taken it upon herself to bring my grandmother, who’s suffering from dementia—that evil disease that transforms a whole person into a childlike human vegetable and acts like a reverse memory transportation device as she doesn’t recognize us anymore—into her house to care for her.

It’s hard watching the effect this has on them. Numbness is my survival tool.

I wish I could join you, Danny. I really do.

I’m invisible.

I want Yahweh to come get me and still He says, “Stay here.”

***

My step-grandfather died in May 2023.

He was my encourager, my editor. He’s the one who encouraged me to write stories, and he got me published in the SCLC national magazine during my undergraduate year at UCF, circa 2014, before JB was no longer my professor.

I miss him.

That’s the first time I’ve allowed myself to admit that aloud.

I have a family friend, James Melton, who is also dead. He was a kind, tender soul. And James Wickman, the father of a good friend who, like me, has cerebral palsy. He died almost a year ago. And I still have all their numbers on my phone. I wonder, Danny, if I were to die the way you did would people keep my number in their phones? I guess that’s a moot point though, isn’t it?

***

I…can’t believe you’re gone. You were supposed to teach me how to play chess and you left before our first lesson! I still see you everywhere; I don’t think that will never not be weird.

Sitting with this—both the pain of missing you and my own thoughts of wanting to follow suit but not having the means to (or maybe not being “sick enough”) which is a messed up thing to say, I know—acknowledging this weird dichotomy I’m in without judgment—especially without judgment—is hard.

I don’t know if there is an easy answer to this.

Like, what do you do when you’re too smart for suicide (i.e. knowing all the reasons why it’s wrong and ultimately unsatisfying because it won’t fix anything anyway) but still yearn for the sweet reprieve of death?

There goes that jealousy again.

No more pain for you, dear friend. Sigh. Despite the paralyzing grief on multiple fronts, I guess I’ll live another day. For you, for me, for us both.