The Wake

Many wise things can and should be said at funerals. When Neil Gaiman writes his own characters remembering Dream of the Endless, this will certainly happen.

Destiny speaks first because he is the oldest and is able to read his address from his book. He notes that Dream had done his job as well as he could but that he, Destiny, sees what is whereas Dream, his brother, had been the lord of what is not. Desire quietly mimics Destiny and Delirium tells him/her to "...stoppit talking..." (The Wake, New York, 1997, p. 71)

Bast regrests "...things left unsaid..." (p. 73), while Rose and Jed sit between Jack Kirby's Darkseid the Destroyer and a quietly weeping Emperor Norton.

Desire comments that family is both a support and a bond and does not conceal his/her conflict with Dream. Despair contrasts Dream's certainty and hope with her own doubt and despair.

Wesley Dodds quotes Dian, "'It's a long, long trail that has no turning.' And how right she was." (p. 77) What exactly does that mean?

The angel Duma sheds a tear in which the onlookers see that the purpose of all things includes each of them.

Delirium used to be scared of Dream but is now "...a bit sad of him..." (p. 78)

Matthew the Raven says that you can't kill dreams, as Lucifer and Mazikeen sit and listen.

Others speak but we do not hear them. (Gaiman had a finite number of pages to work with.) Lastly, Death speaks to everyone, makes sense of everything and gives peace and meaning.

There is nothing more to be said.

How To Meet Death

Destruction tells Orpheus three ways to meet Death:

die - you will see her but you won't have much chance to talk;
be born - but we always forget that conversation with her (is it written anywhere else that she speaks to us then?);
visit her house - no good to the rest of us but Destruction can send him there.

This is the only time we see Death's dwelling which she prefers to decorate anachronistically. Then the story returns to the Classical myth as Death tells Orpheus where and how to enter the Greek underworld. Much later, Orpheus' fate affects his father, Morpheus, in ways created by Gaiman as a sequel to the myth.

Morpheus tells Shakespeare that, as the Prince of Stories, he himself cannot have a story but what then is The Sandman? Is it only that, within the story, he cannot have a story?