Death of a Beloved

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him. He'd love to hear about the way I've been doing. When I ask him to make a wish, he's a hell of a person."

"He's my friend and my part-time patient," said Marshall. "Whatever he's doing is good for him. But he's not God. He's not the Lord, unless he's raised up, and he's raised up, in a very special way, for me. I've been moving to the west and I've been living in a cell, in this rickety old house that I've bought for him, with a very beautiful view of the lake.

"I've been thinking about him for some time. I've wanted to have him with me for some time. I've always felt that he was my friend and I'm his only witness. I'm glad he's gone out of my life and has gone somewhere he'll never be found again. But I still have a feeling that I have missed him terribly."

He turned away from the lamp in the window and looked about him.

"He's not that bad," he said. "He makes up his own plan and he's very good at it."

He paused and then quietly closed the door.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

When I went to the funeral I thought I'd be left alone. I'd seen too many people weeping and I was sure I'd have to see all of them.

I was still looking through my papers when I got my first notice from the Police. It was a week before Christmas, but I had to go to my father's funeral.

The police said that they would not come to my mother's house until I was 18.

I had to go to my father's funeral a week before Christmas as well. I remember distinctly from that day how my father was buried with his mother and one of my sisters.

When my father was buried I had to go out to my father's grave myself, and I spent the whole night there.

I was still looking through my papers when I got my first notice from the F.M. Police. It was less than two years since I had left him.

I had to go out again to my father's grave after the funeral, because I had to see him in his last moments.

My father was a man of fifty-six, and he had left his wife and his children for me. He had a villa in the city, and he had lived there for several years.

He was sick of working, sick of his own life, but he was always cheerful and cheerful, and it looked as if he had something to prove.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him. I hope he's in a lot of good places.

The way I look at it, there's nothing more to do than get up and walk away.

He wasn't the only one who died.

I have to tell you, I was so devastated when I were told I was going to die, and it was a very painful thing to see. The whole world was changed. It knocked me down right there.

In the summer of '78, I got a commission to write a play. I was in a couple of bad ones.

But I was the one who told the editor to give me a break, and that was to write a play about my wife. It was called The Gypsy Woman.

It was a very strange thing to say to a woman who had suffered so much, who had given so much. When she had died it was the first time I had been so completely withdrawn from her.

I went from one bad to another in a few months, and then the possibility of writing a play came up.

I saw it on Broadway, and I thought to myself, "I am going to write a play about her. I am going to write it in a way that she will understand." And then I saw her at her deathbed.

Nothing was more beautiful and powerful than her face.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

Our meeting in the office was brief, but it was brief enough to give us a chance to get to know one another, to talk to one another. In the spirit of that, we shall this time speak with the benefit of those familiar to you from our own lives. I say that to make the point my own, since I am one of the few men who have been able to talk with any seriousness about the matter.

"What do you think?" he asked, as we sat in a darkened corner of the office. "Is there a chance that he will become a prisoner?"

"I don't know," I answered. "I think I know enough to make a silly excuse."

"It's a stupid excuse," he said. "I don't know what he does for a living."

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him. I hope he's in the chapel when my wife says her prayers.

"I guess I'll have to wait and just wait," whispered the old man.

"But I've got my own way of looking at it, and I'll go on to my own life," said she. "I'm sure you'll be glad to know that my brother and I have two children, and that I have five grandfathered grandchildren. I wish to live in peace with my family; if my old friend was to tell me that he had been a good friend to me, I'm sure that it would be very to my advantage to set him at rest, since he was never a friend to me. But I will never forget him."

"I see you now," said the old man, plucking up his hat, and giving it a shake. "Why, I'm glad the dog was brought in."

"That's my dog," said she. "And it's a fine dog."

"I think it will be a good dog to make the rounds with at supper," he said, smiling.

"You're right," she said. "So is the trusty dog."

"And I shall carry him home with me," he added with a grin. "But when I get home I will leave him with you."

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him. Then I'll come back for him when he's dead.

She smiled, holding out her hand. "If this is your thing, maybe you'll come back for me."

"I'm sure I can find a job," he said. "I know it's not the only thing I could do."

"Then you'll have to smile at me, if you'll do what it takes to keep me here."

"Don't be soft on me, Helen," she said. "I'm not a coward. I'll be back."

"You'll have to live with it," he said. "It's not easy."

"It's the only thing I have left."

"But you can't just leave your wife and child and then come back to them in a few days."

"No, Helen," he said. "They'll understand me. They'll love me. They'll love me for me, and they'll love them for me.

"But it's a long way down the road."

"I shall never go that way again. I shall never return. I'll never be able to live up to the standard that I set before men."

"But you will never be able to live up to your own standards, and you will never be able to live up to the standards at which you set yourself."

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

My wife and I bought our house in the neighborhood that he grew up in. He lived there until he was twenty-five. I had been there for twenty-four years, and our house was in the middle of it. The neighborhood was very segregated.

When I was young, my father had been a member of the Alpha and Beta Theta sororities. He was a very faithful brother, and I was very close to him.

A few years ago I was called to join the Guardian's Society. It was a new thing, and I found it difficult to get along with them. I've had some difficulties, and I didn't like it. They weren't as close to me as I was to my father, and they didn't seem to know much about me.

I did go on to be a member of the Alpha and Beta Theta sororities, and I was a very faithful brother. But I didn't like them—and I don't like them now.

The newspaper ads were no longer the same. Now the newspapers used to be full of advertisements for the university. They were more interesting, and the great universities had become very powerful. A great university was one that was like a big church.

I was about twenty-seven when I left for college. I did not go to college. I was living with my parents.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

There was a big buzz about Ben Reid before he died.

He was a fine man, a man with a heart of gold, with an excellent mind.

He was also a television personality, a man who, sadly, had gone out with his eyes open.

He was no ordinary man. He was a man who had been selected from a very wide range of backgrounds, and had a head full of questions, and, if I remember right, a great appetite for adventure.

It was his show, and his heart, which he had been particularly influenced by. It had been a fascinating and rewarding experience.

I remember when Bruce died. It was far too early to know if he had made a contribution to our understanding of the mind. But I knew that, had he lived to see the day, he would have given a profound lecture on the nature of consciousness.

He was a man who had enjoyed life as much as he could, but who had been haunted by a sense that he had been in a high place. He had been able to begin to see that in the end his struggles did not help to clear his mind. And he had found a wide-ranging career in television.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

I got a lot out of him. He was a very good man. I'm sure he'll be in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

I used to say to him, "I'll tell you something, Jack. When I was old enough, I thought I should try to see if I could make a few friends."

He would say, "Well, you can't go to church," and he'd show me the town halls. I'd have to take him to give him a tour of them. I made him a speech for the town hall. He was a very good man. I used to say, "You know, Jack, if you had been a man of the world, would you want to be a man of the world?"

He'd say, "Well, man, I should be happy to be a man of the world."

So I thought, "Well, you can't go to church, Jack." I never got my way about religion.

I've never tried to do anything with religion. I have been lucky enough to live in a world of people who have no religion. I've only been a believer for twenty years.

I've just come back from a visit to a town called Pittsburg, Pennsylvania.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

The last time I visited him, he was a little more sensitive than he was then.

I remember him whispering to me in the car with his wife, "I'm getting back into the swing of things. But I don't want to go through it again. I want to live with love."

He was a good man. He didn't handle his business like a boss.

I was talking to him about his daughter's wedding.

"You know, she did the best she could, but she wasn't ready, and I wanted to make sure that she had something to look forward to."

"Well, wouldn't it be nice to have a wedding," I said.

"I guess so," he said. "I'd like to have a wedding. But I don't think I can have it in the home of the church. It would be a disgrace for me to make the best of it."

"It would be a disgrace," I said.

"Well, then, you'll have your wedding at the church."

"I'll be glad to!" he said. "But I'll have a friend who will set up a wedding."

"That's lovely," I said. "I'll be glad to go along with him."

"I won't travel with you," he said. "But I'll come along."

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him. I hope he's at the front of my soul when I pray for him. I hope I am in his heart when I pray for him."

"I think he's in heaven watching me when we pray."

"And I hope he's in heaven watching me when we love him."

"And I hope he's in heaven watching me when we have to take him out of town."

"But he's not here now," said He said, "I mean, he's in hell, and I'm in heaven."

"Yeah, but it's just a little better," I said. "And when he comes out of it, he'll be in his bed on the hillside, and he'll be always in my mind, and I'll remember him as a good man."

"You'll remember him as a good man for ever," said He. "And destiny has been watching you all this time. He's going to keep watching you, and you'll be watching him. He's not going to leave you alive, but he will keep watching you for as long as you live."

"But you'll never be able to see Him again," said I.

"Not in hell, I assure you," He said. "But when you're in heaven, you'll never be able to see Him."

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

The only thing he would have wanted from this world was a spark of life.

It's said I'm the best-loved man in America — if love is an art, I'm the best-arted man in America. And he was a great tome on the art of love, as well as of the human condition.

He was a man with about two thousand years on him. He was a man who could write a story, and it is still a saga.

He was a man who knew what he could do.

He was a man who had lived through the worst.

He was a man who knew what he could do, and he was doing it better than anyone at the time did.

He knew how to handle money and power, and he lived well.

He was a man who had been a drunkard, a gambler, a liar, a gambler, a liar, and a thief. He had once been a robber, and had been a thief again. And he had been a great thief, and had been a great gambler.

He was an honest man.

He was a man who had found his soul in politics.

He was a man who had been a fighter, he was a fighter again, and he was a fighter again.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

How did you get to a place like this?

I met my husband at college.

What was he like?

He was the most beautiful man I ever knew. His face was a face of sunshine and happiness. He was a man of great faith, and I knew he had no doubts about the truth of his faith. I believed him, but I had no hope that he would ever believe in anything that I did.

We grew up together.

It was during our college years that I discovered my own faith. I had never had a belief before. It was a revelation to me that it was not the work of God that I carried out. It was the work of the devil that I carried out.

I was never more convinced of the self-sacrifice of my fellow-men than when I was struck by the soul-searching process of the damned.

The poor devil!

I had written the article on the wickedness of the damned. I had pointed out to my friends that the Devil's shadow took its prey from the heart of the man who believed he was up to the devil's business. I had also pointed out to my husband that the devil was not interested in the work of the Christian, but in the work of the devil.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

He changed me. I felt he really loved me and understood my situation. He was an honest man and knew what he was doing. He understood the nuances of child abuse. He didn't hide his feelings. He knew what it was like to be abused and he knew what it was like to be helpless. He knew what it was like to lose a child. He knew what it was like to live with shame. He knew what it was like to have a child go to sleep crying every night for a year and a half. He knew what it was like to get to a point where he didn't like himself. He knew what it was like to be insane and want to die.

He was committed to a mental hospital.

He died in his sleep.

It was a very dark night. There was a silence that fell slowly across the room.

I had an idea that I could put my hand over his mouth and he would choke out a scream. I thought I could pull his eyes away from my face and tell him I loved him. I didn't know what to do.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

I'm thankful to him for all he's done.

I'll be back in the morning with fresh ideas.

I was still in fear of the world.

One night I went to a house in a small village.

I tried to read it. It was a book by a young man who had been a soldier in the Second World War.

I did not understand it.

I was ill and didn't know what to do; but I read it.

It was a book on the German soldier, a young man who had served in the trenches.

It was a strange book. It was red, with red pages and red faces, but its heart was a blue-grey stone.

I read it for a long time, but I could not quite understand it.

But I kept it in my mind.

I tried to read it. I read it again and again.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him.

It's hard to believe, but I know that I cannot live with myself. I'm older now, I know that I'm wasting my life. I know that I don't have enough power to make my own choices. I know that I'm not worthy of God's love.

But I must go on.

I am sorry that I have let you down, but that's the way it is.

I have to be happy in my own way, but I can't be satisfied with just letting you go. I know that if I was in your place, I would not have gone, and I know that if I were in your place, I would never have let you go.

The great man said that he had his soul in the world, and he had his soul with his wife and his children. I guess that I have mine in God's hands, too.

I feel a little more secure now than I have in years. I've got my life turned around. I've got my wife, and all the children, my parents, my friends. My wife and I are in the same room, and we are very happy.

I think it's time for us to take some time to think about our lives.

It's been a year since he's gone. I hope he's in heaven watching me when I pray for him. Your tears cannot drown my voice."

He was real quiet. He had left his family and his friends to go to be a soldier in the war, and he had been with us at the front. He was a very soft-spoken man, but he knew what he was doing. He had his wife and his children in His country, and he had been with them in the trenches. He had been a soldier during the winter and in the spring, and he was still to be found in the trenches in the light of day. He had been a soldier, and he had been a soldier, and he would never forget it.

"I have loved you ever since you left me," said he. "You are the best friend I ever had. You were my first lover, and you have never been my last. I will never leave you. You are my most treasured possession."