The final words of Ray Bradbury to an ever captive audience

As everyone knows by now, Ray Bradbury died a few days ago.  But, as some of you may not know, his final editorial was published in The New Yorker less than two days before his passing.  Not only is it amazing that he was writing until the end, but the subject of his final piece is beautiful considering what happened just days later.

In his last column, "Take Me Home," Bradbury recalls his first encounter with death when he was a child and his first inklings that all things must end.  In this short piece, he also remembers what first inspired him to eventually write sci-fi pieces, such as The Martian Chronicles. He explains that many of his stories can be traced back to an experience as a child with fire balloons, paper lanterns that are lit and set free into the night sky.    

Reminiscing on the fervent imaginative days of his childhood leads him to recall the "letting go" of these lit paper lanterns in which he took part with his grandfather.  He explains that even though his grandfather died when he himself was just five years old, he "remember(s) him so well," and that this event clearly stood out in his mind for years to follow.  The title of the article connects to this event in that he saw the balloons as beautiful things that he did not want to release, but he knew, upon his grandfather's quiet urgings, that he must; they had to passed on, with all the connotations of such an expression.  He explains that he dreamed himself of being taken away "home" to Mars after first reading Edgar Rice Burroughs' John Carter books.  And now, just days before his own passing, he says again, "take me home."

It is this sense of memory and reverence for all moments of life that comes through strongest in Bradbury's words here.  Everything that has been experienced and remembered is present in us, not passed, for as long as we live.  And if we are able to so eloquently put our experiences to paper as Bradbury did, they will live to see many days beyond our own.     

I am so overwhelmed by my sense of Bradbury as an author and an inspiration and a man who lived and lives a beautiful life through his words.  I never met him, and I never saw him speak, but I feel an intimate connection to the man, as if he had sat next to me and told me stories.  When I was 8-years-old, he painted a future world that terrified me and amplified by love of books for the rest of my life.  When I was a bit older, The Halloween Tree fascinated and haunted my imagination, recalling itself to me every cold October night.  Years later, Something Wicked This Way Comes is still evoked every time I see a makeshift suburban carnival come quietly to town; the horrors that could be lurking there!  Ray Bradbury, you've made the world more interesting; you've infused the mundane with mystery; you put life itself in a paper lantern. And I am sure that many of you feel the same.  How extraordinary to have such an impact. 

And what wonderful icing on the cake of a life well lived to sign off with a piece recalling moments from the beginning and how they intimately connected to so much that came later.  What a beautiful commentary on life, its fragility and its possibilities.  And on the fact that it does all, sooner or later, conclude.   

As Alli pointed out yesterday, humans are just pretty cool.  Ray Bradbury was certainly no exception.  Check out his final gift to his world of readers at http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2012/06/04/120604fa_fact_bradbury#ixzz1x1oaNChW  .