2001-09-28 - 2:36 p.m.

Sarah,

I'm sure you've been inundated with people looking for advice after last week's tragedies. Even so, I hope that you can give me a little guidance.

Last May, I fell in love with the man of my dreams. I came out of the closet fairly late in the game (all the mental gymnastics and rationalizations throughout college couldn't make the heterosexuality stick) after entering the

working world. I was prepared for cutthroat office politics and asshole bosses and long hours -- but not for meeting the guy who so levelled me that to describe him seems like a kind of idolatry. How can one pay homage to oneself?

Because that's what he was; he was ME. I finally understood why people write cheesy love songs and bad poetry and emails that are so mushy that you could have a hypoglycemic attack just from glancing at one of them.

He was killed on September 11th. I can't play the games that others do, saying that he's "missing" and that I'm "waiting for good news." I knew he was dead the instant the first plane hit.

Other people are trying to support me, and for that I'm eternally grateful. But they don't get through to me. No one does. My parents call me every 45 minutes, trying to make sure that I haven't gone off the deep end. Co-workers look at me with the kind of bizarre, ingratiating look of concern that's usually reserved for idiots or people with something stuck in their teeth. Passengers on the subway give me looks of pity that could bend metal bars, because they can tell. They just can.

I've been to the priest, the grief counselors. I've been referred to a shrink who is supposedly an "expert" in her field. (Why, I wonder to myself, would anyone want to become the leading authority on crisis counseling? What unspeakable trauma or God complex must such a woman have?) No one can penetrate this raw force-field that surrounds me; but the sad thing is that half the time I feel like it's everyone else who has built it there, because they can't begin to know what to say. Who can?

I'm so tired of the platitudes. "Feel your feelings" and "let time pass." I feel the feelings in every cell of my body, every minute of the day -- and they scorn me. They advance, they retreat, they plot their courses in a game which takes place in my body, but to which I'm not invited. As for "time": a sick cosmic joke, the diminution of everything to an

infinitesimal crawl. Seconds last for five minutes; minutes go on for hours; hours telescope into days on continuous loop. Time moves so horribly slowly. It stretches out in its vast, terrifying way, taunting me with its recklessness; and it just hurts so impossibly much.

I know without a doubt that I am going to get through this, and that I will get my life back. I was just hoping that you might have a sentence or two that could dull the pain or speed up the time for five or ten minutes. More than that I don't expect from anyone, and I sincerely hope that this letter doesn't make you feel some awful pressure. Maybe I shouldn't send it. But it just feels natural; a couple of times, I read him snippets from your articles and they made him laugh. He printed out your "Fashion Plotz" essay and showed it to his parents. Once in a while I would read him parts of The Vine (he loved it when you ripped people apart) and he'd yell, "OUCH! OUCH! OUCH!" on the way to the refrigerator, with the biggest smile on his face.

I remember being amazed in ninth grade biology class when our teacher told us that the human skeletal system actually isn't very solid: hard minerals surrounding an empty core. But now I understand the concept. I feel hollow inside my bones, as if they've been scooped out and made so brittle that they could snap. And I wish that it would just happen, or wouldn't happen, or that somebody would tell me whether it will or won't, because then I would actually be sure of something.

Ben's Shadow

Dear Shadow,

I'm so very sorry.

Occasionally, on the news, a camera pans past the remains of the World Trade Center -- the seven-story chunk of the building that looks like a gravestone knocked to one side by frost heave. "God," I think to myself, "it's so small." And then I see the ant-sized rescue workers walking around in front of it, and I think, "God...it's still so big." That's how I feel these days, as a human being and as a writer. That's how I feel every time I try to comfort another person in a time of grief. I work with words. Words should work here. I throw words at it -- cite Auden, maybe, or talk about how I felt when my grandma died, or give the gallows humor a shot, but it's never any good. Anything I say is an ant in front of that giant hulking grave. It's still so big. I could try to tell you that your true love has gone to a better place, or that you should feel grateful for the time you had with him, or that you'll live, laugh, and love again, the longest journey begins with a single step, that which does not kill us winds up as a t-shirt slogan, on and on without end amen. Or I could try a different tack and remind you that the universe sucker-punched you and that it's still standing over you, waiting for you to get your wind back, so it can sucker-punch you again.

I could try to talk to you about your own pain. I could keep hauling metaphors out of the closet and holding them up to you to see if they fit (see?). But all the platitudes and cutesy-poo images in the world won't help.

I can't tell you how much I hate that. I hate that I have nothing to offer you, that the one thing I've got is no good, that the only thing I can do is sit here and bitch at a guy who stole a can of tomatoes and hope that, someday, when the sun is out and you've just had a good cry, you read it and the lines around your eyes crease a little.

But you know all these things, and the things you don't know, I can't help you with. I wish I could. I wish it with my whole heart.

But telling you that, wishing you the very best of luck and hope, is all I've got. I hope it helps a little bit. I'm happy to do it any time.

Blatantly stolen from tomatoNation.com

like i said, its all about being greatful.

i keep saying how i dont expect a future how i hate to plan for it.

it could not work out.

something could go very very wrong.

circumstances may change.

or as my history tells me, someone may die.

someone could always die.

ask my mother. honestly i think she;s the best person to talk to this man.

i would say to see him everywhere.

be close to his family. try something new maybe. do some community service or good for the world. volunteer with children or animals and enjoy it- there 's so little i could say to help but i feel so much in me wanting help.

the parts of me that want to help everyone- do what they want of me-

-bsg-

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