This Is Hard To Write

February 2025

Sun founder and editor emeritus Sy Safransky hoped to find more time to write after he retired from fifty years at the helm of the magazine. Then, a little over a year before stepping down in January 2024, he was diagnosed with the early stages of dementia. His condition has worsened since then, but he hasn’t let it stop him from putting pen to paper.

—Andrew Snee

I’m not the writer I used to be.

Writing has always been hard for me. But now it’s even more difficult because I have severe cerebral atrophy leading to impaired language, executive function, and memory. In other words, I’m not as smart as I used to be—or maybe my brain isn’t as smart as it used to be, which is the same thing, I suppose. Or maybe not.

When I started The Sun, I wanted everyone who sent us their work and everyone who worked for me to know that every word counts. That every word tells. And now how many words aren’t here for me?

A friend said, “Nouns are the first to go.” I thought she meant nuns. Then it occurred to me that I don’t remember what nouns are.

All those words I thought were mine aren’t anymore.

And the magazine I thought would always be mine isn’t.

And this life—not mine either.

Words I don’t like:

Mild cognitive impairment.

Cognitive decline.

Then there’s: mild dementia.

Then there’s: moderate dementia.

Then there’s: severe dementia.

And then there’s: Alzheimer’s disease.

What matters now? My schedule? My exercises? My words? My foolishness? My wife? My daughters? My brain? My death?

Did my brain disease start with my parents? With my grandparents? Do I need to have a conversation with my brain? Oh, Mr. Brain, lend me a hand. Lead me to the promised land I still don’t understand—though the teachers helped. I know they did. Ram Dass, of course. And the Buddha. Even Jesus, who appeared one night more than fifty years ago, just the two of us standing in the kitchen.

The words mean so little. The mystery means everything.

I think about all the ways I’ve failed: As a writer, a husband, a father, a grandfather, a Jew, a Buddhist. Yet I try to remember: The work that needs to be done is endless. And I vow to complete the work.

We’re all falling short. This is true of the United States of America. This is true of the magazine I started. This is true of me.

Me again. Talking. Talking. Talking. About what? About me, of course. Oh, Sy.

Crying, too. Lots of crying. Who do I want to blame? Myself for not sleeping enough? For smoking too much marijuana?

So, talk to me, my dear brain, my lovely, brilliant brain. Tell me how I could have done better, and how you might have been better. Dear Mr. Brain, why have I found myself in a strange and confusing world?

I was never brilliant. I wasn’t even smart. But working hard appealed to me. I also wasn’t handsome. But I wanted the magazine to be handsome. And I think it is.

Did I ever really know what I was doing with my words, with the magazine, with my friends, with strangers? I became a boss, but what kind of boss was I, given that I didn’t want to be the boss? Still, I aspired to be a better boss than most. I tried to treat my colleagues and our writers, poets, and photographers as best I could. Yet when I left the office at the end of the day, I rarely felt I’d gotten enough done. Was it because I’d spent too much time talking with my colleagues or with friends who stopped by? Because I’d been distracted by something I’d read, or something someone had said? I couldn’t stop thinking about what I’d accomplished and what I hadn’t. The decisions I’d made. The disagreements. The regrets.

Oh, brain, wonderful brain, confusing brain. My words, my memories failing. And my friends, too, falling apart and dying. I’m reminded of a Shunryu Suzuki quote: “Life is like stepping into a boat which is about to sail out to sea and sink.”

I’m learning that crying is what it is, not bad, not good. And that dementia is what it is, not bad, not good. And anything can happen in anyone’s life, anywhere, anytime. Not bad, not good.

Robert Creely: “Words, words, as if all worlds were there.”

It doesn’t matter if my broken heart is breaking again, and I can’t tell anyone why because I don’t have the words. Even if I did, they wouldn’t be the right words.

Good times and bad times. The years of struggle, the months I couldn’t pay the rent or the printer, the unexpected help that always chose the last minute to arrive.

Oh, dear brain, with your astonishing 100 billion neurons and your trillions of synapses, how much writing have I done in these last sixty-five years: sentence by sentence, word by word, letter by letter? Millions of words, billions of thoughts that never made it onto the page.

I never wanted The Sun’s success—its widening influence, its growing pains—to distract us from what really matters: touching what is truthful, what is real.

Why am I sitting here at five in the morning? I could be dreaming. Instead I’m wondering why there’s not a decent thought in my head.

Stop it, Sy. You know why you’re here, standing at the corner of Space and Time. You’re waiting for the Muse to drive by and say, “Hop in.”

I may look like I’m loitering, but I’m not.

I now understand that my Alzheimer’s disease may have begun earlier than I’d expected. According to Dr. Doug Brown, director of research and development at the Alzheimer’s Society, changes in the brain may start “as many as eighteen years before a formal diagnosis could take place.”

Ser Davos from Game of Thrones: “Nothing fucks you harder than time.”

I told myself I’d never retire. That I’d die at The Sun. I’d get dressed in the morning, work at home for a few hours, then drive to the office, say hello to my staff, walk halfway up the stairs, and die.

I’m sitting outside, eating a salad and not being very mindful. Too many thoughts in my head. Does anyone know where thoughts come from—or, for that matter, where anything comes from? These words I used to turn into interesting sentences: Where did they come from? And where have they gone?

People used to ask me when I planned on retiring. What? Retire from doing what I love? Why? Would I be happier not putting out The Sun every month? Do we ask children at play whether they want to retire from being filled with wonder? Do we ask lovers how much longer before they stop gazing in one another’s eyes? Do the birds retire from singing?

I never thought of publishing The Sun as a career or a job. No, it’s been my life.

Sitting under the porch light, thinking about the nearest star, 93 million miles from here. This is eternity, and it’s as much eternity as I’ll ever know, and I’m as near to God as I’ll ever be.

How readily we ignore the beauty around us, as if this mysterious world weren’t exciting enough. We sit there with our head in the news while the world is trying to talk with us. Or we fall asleep in front of the television, just as the world is reaching out to us so lovingly, so expectantly.

I’m not going to become a better writer. This is it. How great is that?

I once assumed that when I was seventy-eight, I’d be the same man I was at twenty-eight. Really, Sy?

Sooner or later, my writing will have only a few simple words. Another year or two later, I won’t be able to write even a single one.

Horace: “One night awaits us all.”

There’s a deadline I must meet. There’s another deadline I keep ignoring.

Write with a pencil. From a tree. From the earth.

If this were my last day in my body, how would I choose to welcome my death? My untimely death. My death that surpasses all understanding. My death that’s waiting patiently for me.

Let’s keep it simple this morning. No big answers to big questions, even if the words are on the tip of my tongue.

Things fall apart. Move on.

https://www.thesunmagazine.org/articles/590-this-is-hard-to-write