Dear Friends & Community,
One of the most incredible poets and beautiful humans died this week at the too soon age of 49. It came to me as a bit of a shock, as although I am a huge fangirl, I hadn’t been following super closely or clued in that they hadn’t posted anything lately.
Honestly maybe it was also the fact that they lived their life so damn fully right up until the last, even though they were dying. So it was hard to tell – like we don’t expect someone who is dying to be creating so much beauty so consistently.
So needless to say, I have been reading and listening to their work and sobbing all week. To be clear, I have always cried when listening to/reading them, because their work is just so f&*ing profoundly beautiful.
But this week, extra tears, because wow – that’s it.
In case you don’t know their work, or especially if you DO so we can sob together, I want to share a bit with you.
Also, they made a film with their partner Meg, post diagnosis, called Come See Me in the Good Light – and you will be able to find it on Apple TV this fall, at which time I will probably write another tear-soaked letter about that.
In the meantime, this, from Andrea Gibson.
LOVE LETTER FROM THE AFTERLIFE
“My love, I was so wrong.
Dying is the opposite of leaving.
When I left my body, I did not go away.
That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here.
I am more here than I ever was before.
I am more with you than I ever could have imagined.
So close you look past me when wondering where I am.
It’s Ok.
I know that to be human is to be farsighted.
But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living.
Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive?
Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?”
In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said.
At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets.
All day I listen to the radio of your memories.
Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me, and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less.
When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials.
Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you.
One day you will understand.
One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited.
There is nothing I want for now that we are so close I open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile every morning.
I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not.
My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones,
Dying is the opposite of leaving.
I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before.
Do you understand?
It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop.
It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest the last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling lighthearted.
I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth.
I promise one day you will say it too– I can’t believe I ever thought I could lose you.”
– Andrea Gibson, 2023 Poet Laureate of Colorado, Legend, Massively Gorgeous Soul ✨💫💛🙌🏼🌀
Find more of Andrea @andreagibson on IG and you can watch them reading this poem to their incredible wife, Meg, HERE and they also have a lot of spoken word and other amazing stuff on Youtube. It’s worth binging. Edit: my gosh, how could I forget to mention you can find them here on Substack https://substack.com/@andreagibson
Their wife Meg shared that some of their last words were, “I fucking loved my life.”
We love you Andrea – what a gift you’ve been to the world. We will miss you, but you left us with SO MUCH.
xo
with Love,
Josea