Dear Waldo,

I’m forty-four and I’m usually a happy guy. You can ask anybody. But for the first time ever, I do believe I have fallen into a deep funk. I’ve never felt so funkified. I’m saying funk instead of depression hoping that joking around about it might help me to de-funkify. So far, no improvement in my de-funkification. I want glee back, Waldo. Got any bright ideas about how to get glee back?

Signed,

Funked Up in Florence

Dear Funked Up,

I’m happy to say that what I suspect you have is TGOFB which, in layman’s terms, is Them Good Old Fashioned Blues. TGOFB deals with heart-break, disappointment, regrets, that kind of thing. What I’m hoping you don’t have is TWHLSGB, which in layman’s terms is Them Where Has Life’s Sweetness Gone Blues. TWHLSGB deals with no specifics. It’s more like a dark cloak of mist that drapes over you. These days it’s more common than ever. And so just to make sure that my hunch is right, Funked Up, I’m going to ask you to take my very short quiz.

Question One: If you could sing, might you sing the blues?

Question Two: Do you find this particular blues lyric amusing: “He said he couldn’t live without me. How come he ain’t dead yet?”

Pencils down, Funked Up. Quiz over. If you answered “yes” to either question, I suspect you have TGOFB. Because if you had TWHLSGB, you wouldn’t feel like singing. You wouldn’t feel like laughing. You may not even feel like lifting your head. You just feel that life in general has changed for the worse, that everyone has become nastier. The remedy for what I suspect you have Funked-Up – TGOFB – is breathtakingly reliable: Wait it out. This too shall pass. Or, as good ol’ Willy Shakespeare said: “Oh Time, thou must untangle this, not I. It is too hard a knot for me to untie.”

However, Funked-Up, if I’m wrong and none of your answers to the quiz were yes, I am recommending something quite different. Stop spending time with this Waldo guy and please begin scouring the countryside, searching for the medically insightful and the spiritually sophisticated who have spent their lives learning how to untangle nasty stubborn knots that have no sense of humor. Professionals have gotten really good at loosening them.

And, Funked Up, if one day you happen to be sitting on the dock of some bay somewhere, call me or text me. I’d love to come sit with you. I got some of TGOFB of my own I’d enjoy discussing. Perhaps we’ll un-funkify together. I am really looking forward to your re-gleeification.

Your Fan,

Waldo Mellon

Mr. Mellon,

I’m fourteen. Somewhere I heard that you said nobody really knows what happens after death. Well then I guess you never heard about me, Kimberly Louise Candlepone. I happen to know exactly what happens after death thanks to Mr. Ellis, my eighth grade science teacher. Mr. Ellis told us that matter cannot be created and it cannot be destroyed. I will write that down again so that maybe it will sink in: matter cannot be created and it cannot be destroyed. If you don’t know what matter is, I’m going to tell you. Matter is everything that happens to take up space.

Does my body take up space? The answer is most certainly yes. And so let’s say that it is me who’s dead, even though I’m just fourteen. My body, which is made up of matter which cannot be created or destroyed thanks to Mr. Ellis’ wisdom, must have something happen to it, correct? Let’s say I get burned up in one of those ovens. Fine. I’m still ashes. Who knows where the wind will blow me? Or let’s say I get buried. After a while maybe some worms or insects will eat me up and swallow me and then poop me out somewhere underground or die and now I’m in the soil and maybe now I’m helping a pretty flower to grow, which might get sucked on by a bumblebee, which might get eaten up by a bird that gets eaten up by a pussycat that gets eaten up by a fox that dies and goes back into the ground, and now I’m helping a flower, and now a humming-bird is drinking me in, and so forth.

In all of those cases I’m still around in some form because I, Kimberly Louise Candlepone, cannot be either created or destroyed because I am made of matter and I will always be a part of something! And so Waldo, please just let my ideas about what happens when you die sink in.

Sincerely,

Kimberly Louise Candlepone

Dear Kimberly,

I promise you that your letter concerning what happens after we die has sunk in. And I want you to know that if I were the boss, I would add your lovely Afterlife Fairytale to all the other lovely Afterlife Fairytales proposed by the Great Big Powerhouse Religions on our planet. In fact, Kimberly, if I were the boss, I’d give your version of what happens after we die a name. I would call it Candleponity, and I would declare myself a Candleponist.

Thank you again for your great letter.

Your Fan,

Waldo Mellon

Waldo’s Thought Trough: Can hyenas tell when another hyena is fake-laughing?

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