So, hey, remember when Mom asked about how I would end this book?

Well, I’m ending it now, by choice, with me walking on the beach. Maybe I’ll just walk for a while, up the coast, see how far I get. No more crossing the old desert sands, at least not now. I’ve had enough of that and, frankly, I’m fucking exhausted.

Like all stories, this is one about failure and temporary victory. What makes this one different (good, bad, or indifferent, and all shades between) is this book contains me. Well, it holds the parts of me, big meaty chunks of me, that I’ve named Art Barbara. In the pages and between the covers is who I am and, eventually, as it will be for all of us, the who I am statement will turn to past tense.

But what about ME? What are you going to do about me????

Hey, so this book is like my casket, yeah? Maybe it’s morbid to think of this book, or any book, as a coffin, but hang with me for one more moment or two (despite the cost).

A book is a coffin because it holds a body, sometimes more than one, and we readers are there to witness, mourn, and celebrate. I like the idea of people (Yes, you. Hi, there!), no matter how small the number, lifting and carrying this casket for a time, honoring it with their attention, experience, memory, and melancholic wonder at what was, at what might be. When you put it down, when you stop carrying it, you’ll move on, like you must. And who knows, perhaps years later a snippet of the book’s memory will unexpectedly alight and linger; a memory of a time and place and of the person you once were, if you allow it.

Thank you for volunteering to carry me to the end. And welcome to the Pallbearers Club.

I’ve written and rewritten and crumpled and I’ve recrumpled so many notes regarding this last chapter. I didn’t get through any of them without crying. Stupid crying. So, I’m going to just plow ahead with this one and not stop to make it pretty. I’ll write down everything I want to, even if maybe I shouldn’t.

I’m sorry, but I don’t think what you wrote should be the end of this book. Never mind that it strikes me as a wee bit sentimental, certainly and surprisingly more so than you ever were in life. Unless you were keeping that deep, dark secret from me all this time. Possible, I suppose. More to the point, the end you wrote is not the end, not the real end, even if it’s the one you wanted.