The Calligraphy

In 1982, I lost a dear friend to suicide. Susan was the kind of girl who lit up people's lives. We were 26 years old the year she died, and had known each other since five years old at infants school.

In 1999, a mutual friend, someone I thought of as an old friend, a man who had once been my lover, but not someone I trusted, brought me this calligraphy. He asked me to frame it in a worthy frame, one that honored and respected Susan.

The calligraphy used an old technology called Letraset. You bought sheets of clear film with alphabets printed on them. You turned the sheet over and used a flat blade to press each letter onto the page. Susan created this calligraphy. She pressed a decorative border of leaves onto each side of the page, and then she colored inside each leaf. The text of the calligraphy is the Desiderata, the desirable things. In the original of this piece, you can see that Susan made some spelling mistakes. Letraset was not a forgiving technology. If you didn't hold the paper completely still, the letter you were pressing out could break. It took a minute or two to press each letter. If you tried to scrape off a miss-spelled letter, you left a shadow mark on the page.

Susan ended her own life, she didn't realize the Desiderata. She didn't feel her right to be here. Susan suffered from the disease of Anorexia. The more stress she experienced, the bigger part Anorexia played in her life. In the months before her death, many dramas, and misguided friends surrounded her. Susan seemed like an emotional vacuum that people (men) wanted to write on.

In 2006, I found out from Susan's former partner that the man who brought me this calligraphy was one of those men. I found out that this man -- the man who brought me the calligraphy to honor Susan, the man who had once been my lover -- had injured my friend. I can't bear to name the injury here. I didn't know about this injury when Susan died. I didn't know this man hurt my friend until later. Susan's former partner helped her decide not to press charges. So, the perpetrator did not get his day in court.

It's a funny thing. In our late teens, our foolish ways seemed somehow redeemable. And by our mid-twenties, life took a grip on us, and said: Look, look!

Susan's death shocked and scared me. I'm glad I didn't know till later of the injury this man did to her. I don't think I could have borne it. When I did find out, I felt betrayed and angry, but mostly I felt sad.

My intuition tells me that this man gave me the calligraphy to make amends to Susan and also to me. He didn't put it that way. He said, "I want you to have it: someone who cared about her. Get it framed. Buy the best frame you can find. I will pay for it. Tell me how much it costs. I will send you the money." He tended to speak that way, in commandments.

So, I did what he asked. Not understanding the context, I did this to honor my friend who died too soon and too young. Later I wondered: Did I do the right thing? I reflected on the pain of Susan's injury. I reflected on the veiled but still obvious pain of her perpetrator. And, I believe I did the right thing. I took the good and left the bad, the terrible bad. I couldn't do anything about the past. I left it there, and honored my friend.

I didn't take the money. The man who gave me the calligraphy had to let it go at giving me the calligraphy. He had to let it just be an offering.

Life weaves a complex cloth. I'm glad I'm just one thread in that cloth. Susan wove a bright thread in the cloth of my life. My dear friend is long gone now. Long gone, but I remember her. I can see her kneeling on a rug with a pad of paper and a sheet of Letraset in front of her, concentrating real hard to get the letters to come out right...