Yesterday the IRS informed me that they couldn\u2019t accept my return because I am deceased. It was news to me. I better get that memoir finished. I tell everybody they need to write their own story, nobody else can. Nobody else has been there for the whole thing. Your parents are there at the beginning, and some of you are lucky enough to still have them around, but even they don\u2019t know everything. They weren\u2019t there when some of the stuff you did happened, both good and bad. All the secrets, the joys, and the pain. The triumphs and tragedies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Be honest about who you are. You are not writing a resume, so when you ask yourself the interview question, \u201cTell me about a failure or challenge and how you overcame it,\u201d be honest with you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A close family member became an ancestor on Monday after battling a number of health challenges, the same day I wrote Time and Space<\/em> honoring a friend and former coworker who passed suddenly from a heart attack while walking in the Botanical Gardens with her grandson and his children. Time and space, the trap we fall into by thinking we have more time, creating space that continues to widen until the next event. Too often for me, that event is death. I need to change that\u2026<\/p>\n\n\n\n Lately, I\u2019ve adopted a phrase when somebody says, \u201cIt\u2019s good to see you!\u201d My standard response now: \u201cIt\u2019s good to be seen and not viewed.\u201d If you see me today, can you say, \u201cI see dead people\u201d?<\/p>\n\n\n\n DMX\u2019s lyrics just popped into my head, \u201c\u2026staring up at the roof of the church.\u201d And one of my favorite rap lyrics from my favorite rapper, \u201cone step kaboom, black suits fill the room.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n I hear those Ethos life insurance commercials, and the guy who lost his dad bluntly says, \u201cHe was 63. Had a stroke.\u201d Then he frankly tells us, \u201cYou\u2019re going to die, we all are going to die.\u201d He also points out that we don\u2019t like to talk about death in our culture. Truth. Guess who is 63.<\/p>\n\n\n\n I didn\u2019t think I would get the chance to write about my untimely death, announced by the IRS.<\/p>\n\n\n\n So here I am, writing about being dead while being very much alive, at the same time contemplating: what now? Thinking about what my death means to other people. Who knows I\u2019m gone, and even who cares.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Yesterday I heard a clip of a woman talking to her daughter about life using a measuring tape. She cut it at 85 inches, telling her daughter that was the average lifespan. She then cut the measuring tape at 66 inches, her current age, and held up the short piece\u2014what\u2019s left. A strong image, way more inches gone than what is left. My goal is 90, unless the Social Security Administration proves that the IRS is correct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Maybe I take this chance to reset, reassess, and recognize what\u2019s important. In one of my favorite movies, Clarence tells George Bailey, \u201cYou\u2019ve been given a great gift, a chance to see what life would be like without you in it.\u201d I\u2019m getting the unique opportunity to see what my life is like with me still in it, in spite of what the government tries to tell me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n And here\u2019s a thought\u2014what happens if on the third day I find out that I\u2019m not dead anymore?<\/p>\n\n\n\n I won\u2019t post a meme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Yesterday the IRS informed me that they couldn\u2019t accept my return because I am deceased. It was news to me. I better get that…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"activitypub_content_warning":"","activitypub_content_visibility":"","activitypub_max_image_attachments":4,"activitypub_interaction_policy_quote":"anyone","activitypub_status":"federated","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-life"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/blackmanwrites.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BMWTombstoneEtched.png?fit=1254%2C1254&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=832"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":834,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/832\/revisions\/834"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackmanwrites.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}