Neigbouring with the Dead on Bleecker St.

[ishai_wallace]

There have been two fatal stabbings on my street in the last two months. One a block to the South of me, and one a block to the North of me. In the most recent stabbing, on December 20th, most news sources reported:

Police would only say that one of the victims was a man and couldn’t confirm if the other was male or female.

My phone started

Comments

[bearsir]

Thank you for writing out the tender, complex, beautiful things you think. I love your writing, and also your thoughts (and most of all, you).

[tyresias]

I want to echo Bear's thanks.

This was an amazing read, very much needed. While it's often hard to live amidst all these deaths, I do wish to honour them as best I can and ensure they are all remembered.

[suitablyemoname]

This was fascinating to read.

It's also weird to parse: two parents, child, dog, apartment. On a street full of dead neighbours.

And some of that is ordinary human compartmentalization. (Do cities have any untainted streets? We all live surrounded by ghosts. If we obsessed over it, we'd never sleep a wink.) But there's also something interesting here about the way that queerfolk have had to embrace (or at least accept) death--all kinds of death, on all fronts--in a way that most contemporary communities cannot begin to contemplate, and that's something I'll be grappling with for awhile.

[anonymous]

This made me want to cry. Thank you, for your touching dedication to your friends, strangers and community at large. I'm a funeral director in training, who also identifies as trans*, and I want to make sure that I serve others as much as possible. Now I just need to figure out where the most trans-friendly funeral homes are... I know the the concept of being trans is quite new to certain members of the funeral industry, and while that's not their fault, I do want to help educate others on trans rights as much as I can, while serving every community at large as well. But anyway, thank you!

[ishai_wallace]

Thank you for commenting. I also want to say there is a huge need for trans-positive funeral services. I think how often people are misgendered in death, or not treated with respect and dignity. Once you are working in the field, come back and let me know where, would you? I'll share it with as many folks who are local to you as I can.