Melancholy Is a Duty We Ignore

I always imagined I would write something about Edmund White after his death. What I never imagined was the death itself. It came on the evening of June 3, 2025. I found out the morning after, lying in bed. I had slept in; I was startled and squinted into the indirect sunlight just past my bedroom doors as I heard my wife say, “He died.” I didn’t know whom she meant, nor why he should be important enough to wake me; I assumed she was talking about some actor, musician, or statesman whose obituary she’d read in the paper. “Who?” I asked.