Dearest Eric

Dearest Eric

I won’t even try to wear a mask now in this letter. Again, today, the sheer anguish is almost more than I can bear. I want to scream…I want to rip something irreplaceable apart, like all those damned pictures of me as a baby and small child. Sometimes, I just want to give up and say you were wrong about me—I have no talent, no “magic” in me as you once so beautifully put it.

I’m having a hard time completing my thoughts here. Your passing is the perfect excuse to be depressed and to stay that way. I’m reminded of Ordinary People—the film, since I have yet to read the book. You are the perfect Buck and I a perfect Conrad here. Where I was sure you would hold on, you let go, and where I was sure I would fall, I still hung on somehow by chance or a miracle.

And the world around me, like the world around Conrad, doesn’t seem to understand how much he hurts and struggles inside to still exist and function in the ordinary world that is far less than forgiving. Why do I feel anger towards you? I know it isn’t right to blame you for dying, but you are, hard though it is to admit, responsible for your death. And I am choosing to grieve like this.

How difficult even the simplest task is: eating, waking up, breathing. How I hated the world for a time because it seemed that it did not even slow down to acknowledge your death as a real loss—how dare the world keep going?! A man, a sweet, kind, gentle man…of laughter, and magic…is GONE! Nothing can ever bring him back! But it mattered not—death is an every day occurrence, like the sun rising and setting.

I wish I could say that though you are gone away I still felt you as much as I did in your actual presence. I wish I could say that it was getting easier now that more months have gone by; indeed, it’s just the opposite—the longer time ticks away between your half-life and sudden death, the worse it becomes, the more worried I’ll start to forget things I once could clearly recall—like the sound of your distinctive voice and laugh, or the way your face became so animated when you talked.

Your voice: mmmm…it was deep, but not base deep. It would become very southern sometimes, but without the twang so many are accustomed to hearing. It was easy on the ear to listen to…not a tone one could grow tired of hearing at length. You were an actor, after all. Shh! Listen, he speaks! Did you hear him?

You never used your voice to your advantage…only for ours, the students. Very seldom were you ever angry, for you had the most marvelous intuitive understanding of children and the novice performer. And if disagreements were had, you’d settle them in unorthodox ways that were compromise. It seemed you never took the easy way out of sticky situations which showed unusual depth of courage in you.

Remember that morning you asked me how my weekend was?

I replied, “Not very good.”

“Why?” you wondered.

“Well, Mr. Bailey, I guess because I didn’t make it a good weekend,” I answered after thinking about it.

“I have more respect for you now,” you said in turn, behind me, just in my ear, in your voice made gentle.

Here, again, I suppose, I’m making this a “sad” day and not a “happy” one full of smiles and light heartedness that you so often saw when I was in your class. But certainly you knew that even “squirrel-baits” had there blue periods.

People often will brush aside a terrible death by saying, “Well, he/she is in a better place now.” I don’t believe this is always the case. In fact, I have imagined you very bored in Heaven, if it is so perfect the way everyone says it is. If you are in Heaven, I hope you aren’t bored. I suppose even in Heaven, angels have “sad” days where they miss their former lives and people they love on Earth. Do you ever get sad still? Do you ever miss me?

What is dying like and death? I dearly hope and pray that you were not in pain while you were dying and just couldn’t breathe anymore…(sigh) Or, even if you were, the pain was slight, dull, or brief until the end. You must’ve been scared and lonely when you realized you were no longer inside the body you were so used to. I know I would’ve been. It’s childish on my part, I know, but if I could’ve, I’d have given you my teddy dad gave me at like 3 weeks old just so you wouldn’t be so lonely and scared and that everything for you would be all right soon enough.

I wonder if in Heaven…one has to learn to move about again, how to hear and see again. Is it very different than Earth? Do you talk differently now? I’m sure you see things so differently now away from earthly worries and thoughts and cares.

What’s God like, now that you know him? I sort of envy you now, because you met celebrities from all over the world and even did scenes with them, like Gary Oldman, and now, you’ve met and know God—the ultimate celebrity! I bet you even have his autograph displayed proudly on your mantle or on a bedside table.

I have a feeling you met my friends the England kids because you, after all, knew both me and Chloe, so that’s how you probably found each other. Did they tell you “embarrassing” stories when I was 5 and 6? I would bet that they were thrilled to know I came out of my shell thanks to you.

And, now that you are with your little boy again, what’s he like? Wonderful, I’m sure, and the image of you, as are Taylor and Jordan.

This letter has no definite or real ending; it’s ongoing and therapeutic for me. As I know plain as day you cannot for the most obvious reasons answer this letter in the conventional hand written or typed way, that’s okay. I really don’t need your answers because I pretty much know how you’d reply anyway: some would come very straight-edged and be matter-of-fact, some would be silly and loopy just to yank my chain and make me laugh, and others would be mysterious and have two or more possible meanings.

To know you was to love you, to find joy in the tiniest of things and places and the worst of circumstances. To love you was an honor and great peace for me and for all others, I’m quite sure. To love you was to be content and love is forever.

I thank you for loving me. The very least thing I can do is to go on loving you the remainder of my earthly days which I can more than promise you I will do.

Lots of LOVE,

Celia Foster, aka “little girl” aka “squirrel-bait”