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Sadly Beautiful
by
Jason Fisk and Abigail Cashman
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Dear Abby,
It took me
over three years to get to the point where I could read anything I wrote about
you, but I did it. I recently sorted through those writings (some of them are
nearly seven years old now). I hope you know that outside of my wife and my
children, I would be hard pressed to find another being on this planet who has
touched and shaped my life as much as you did in your too short thirty-six
years on this Earth. And even after you’ve passed, dealing with your death has
greatly impacted who I am and who I want to become.
As I sorted
through my files, I was amazed at how much I had actually documented in one way
or another. I was amazed at how much I either wrote directly about you in poems
and essays, or how your battle with Ulcerative Colitis and the loss that battle
entailed affected my fiction.
I was also
saddened by how much I missed in my writings. You were such a beautiful soul.
In no way do these jottings cover everything you went through, and no way do
they even begin to encompass who you were. I’m so sorry for that. I also
apologize for not attempting to give you the collection you deserve; I don’t
have the emotional energy to attempt that task. It’s daunting.
This is
simply a collection of poems, fiction, and essays that I wrote alongside your
heartbreaking journey to cope with what was happening to you at that specific moment
in time. It was my attempt to wrap my head around what was transpiring.
I’ll be
honest with you; I’m not really sure why I’m doing this. I’d like to tell
myself that putting all of these writings together will give those who knew you
a taste of what you had to go through during the last few, rough years of your
life. You would be surprised at how many people have contacted me through Facebook
saying something like, I just heard...,
or I just found out... Some of these
messages are from people whom I never knew, and the gist of most of our
conversations or messages were always about how you helped them during a rough
spot in their life, or how they really looked up to you, or what a beautiful
spirit you had. I’m not sure my reasons for putting this together are that
altruistic. I think I just want to hang out with you, and I’ll even take the
bad times you went through over not having you here at all. Selfish? Yes. You
know that if I could, I would never bring you back alive just to suffer. I just
miss you is all.
Forever,
Jason
JASON FISK is a husband to one, a father of two (soon to be three), and a teacher to many. He lives and teaches in the suburbs of Chicago. His long list of employment before he became a teacher includes working as a mental health professional in a psychiatric unit, a driller of holes in a kitchen cabinet making factory, and a grunt for a bricklayer.
He is the author of Hank and Jules, of a collection of short stories published by Kill the Middleman Press; Salt Creek Anthology, a collection of micro-fiction published by Chicago Center for Literature and Photography; the fierce crackle of fragile wings, a collection of poetry published by Six Gallery Press; as well as two poetry chapbooks - The Sagging: Spirits and Skin, and Decay, both published by Propaganda Press.
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