LK Madigan

I did not know LK Madigan. But still I knew her. I knew her because she was a writer, like me. I knew her because she had the same dreams I had. And she DID touch those dreams. She created things. Those things affected other people. She put herself into everything she wrote, and by reading what she wrote you met her, even if you never actually met her. So I knew LK Madigan without ever knowing her. And I miss her laughter without ever having heard it. Her laughter, her voice, her presence will live on in her writing for me. So many people who did actually meet her have put up things in remembrance. At first, I didn't think it was my place to put up something, since my memories were just ersatz glimpses of a wonderful and much loved person. Now I think it's a good thing so say that I will miss a woman who impacted me simply by following her own dreams, by indomitably existing in the world while she was among us.

These are the lyrics to a song called 'When I Go' by Dave Carter - another soul whose time was too short among mortals. It is how I want people to remember me when I have gone, and I hope that those who did know LK in life will think it a fitting eulogy to her. It's my little eulogy, from one writer to another.




Come, lonely hunter, chieftain and king
I will fly like the falcon when I go
Bear me my brother under your wing
I will strike fell like lightning when I go

I will bellow like the thunder drum, invoke the storm of war
A twisting pillar spun of dust and blood up from the prairie floor
I will sweep the foe before me like a gale out on the snow
And the wind will long recount the story, reverence and glory, when I go

Spring, spirit dancer, nimble and thin
I will leap like coyote when I go
Tireless entrancer, lend me your skin
I will run like the gray wolf when I go

I will climb the rise at daybreak, I will kiss the sky at noon
Raise my yearning voice at midnight to my mother in the moon
I will make the lay of long defeat and draw the chorus slow
I'll send this message down the wire and hope that someone wise is listening when I go

And when the sun comes, trumpets from his red house in the east
He will find a standing stone where long I chanted my release
He will send his morning messenger to strike the hammer blow
And I will crumble down uncountable in showers of crimson rubies when I go

Sigh, mournful sister, whisper and turn
I will rattle like dry leaves when I go
Stand in the mist where my fire used to burn
I will camp on the night breeze when I go

And should you glimpse my wandering form out on the borderline
Between death and resurrection and the council of the pines
Do not worry for my comfort, do not sorrow for me so
All your diamond tears will rise up and adorn the sky beside me when I go