"In These Terrible Times"

(Note: this is a creative piece that I read aloud at a show last spring.)

Writing sympathy cards for a teenage girl who has lost her father may seem like a daunting task. Despite the fact that everyone who has ever lived has also died, death, that crafty little weasel, manages to remain a mysterious secret that most of us are just plumb unready to deal with.

Don't be alarmed! With these helpful tips and just fifteen minutes of your time, you too can make death cozy and meaningful, like Christmas, instead of random and terrifying, like death!

Everyone have your cards and pens? Okay, let’s begin.

First: Make sure to write about someone you know who is dead.

If you can write about the target deceased, great! But what if you didn’t like him? What you worked down the hall from him for six years without ever introducing yourself? What if you’re just here for the cheese plate?

Don’t worry! Everyone you love will die someday. That makes the odds pretty good that you have a dead person kicking around in your head right now.

So: tell her about your golf buddy’s death or the way that your roommate coped after her boyfriend was run over by a garbage truck. It will make her feel loved to know that you and she are part of the same club (even if it is the least exclusive club that there has ever been).

Two: Say something nice about the deceased.

If you liked him, great! If not, get creative! Try some people thought he was funny or he knew a more about boats than anyone I know.

Like my Mama always said: if God didn’t love backhanded compliments, he wouldn’t have given tennis rackets two sides.

Three: Tell her where and when you were when you herd.

This is vital information without which no sympathy card is complete. Imagine the fun she’ll have as she tracks the news on a map with colorful push-pins, like an invading army!

Don’t forget to call it the news, which is the medical term.

Four: Order her to feel bad.

Don’t overlook this step. Be firm. Say it with authority: you must be devastated. You must feel like life is not worth living. You must want to push a pencil into your brain until everything is numb.

 This kind of direction is very important. Without it, the thought of suicide might never even cross a fourteen-year-old girl’s mind.

Five: Be original!

Like my middle school English teacher used to say: How do you scare a rabbit? Unique up on it!

If you have any interest in poetry or New Age philosophy, this is just the opportunity that you need!  Imagine how much your card will stand out from all of those other boring ones. 

Six: Tell her Jesus loves her.

This is especially important if she isn’t Christian. After all, doesn’t that just mean that she has more to worry about than anyone?

Seven: Tell her that you love her.

 In forty sympathy cards, this was the only useful thing that anyone said.  

Eight: Be yourself!

Or better yet, be the couple who sent me a snapshot of a snowy cabin with a message on the back that read, in full: This is our cabin in New Hampshire. I’m so sorry for your loss. Bob and Beth.

(For all I know, you may be Bob and Beth. No one in my family, to this day, has any clue who they are.)

Wrap things up with a jaunty signature like from all the gals in suite 233B and you are all set to shine like the little ray of sunshine that you are.

Remember: with three minutes and a dollar fifty, you too can turn death into just another Hallmark holiday—a non-event where you can eat cookies and go through the motions of a ritual to which you feel no emotional connection. 

And if the thought ever creeps into your head that you might die—that someday it might be your friends and golf buddies and cousins’ significant others sitting crouched over an empty square of cardboard with nothing at all to say—don’t worry! They sell sympathy cards with ponies on them! Ponies—the least threatening of all the hoofed mammals!

Just look at that pony on the front of your store-bought card and imagine it saying: Don’t worry. Everything will be all right. Death is controllable, grief is manageable, comfort is cheap and easy, and you have nothing to worry about.