Oct 17, 2004 21:07
no, not RPG rules... the real thing....
A touchy subject for many -- so I warn you in advance that my views on this are not necessarily traditional.
I did not plan on writing on this topic except that I had a death this week. Yes, it was only a gerbil not a human, but it is still a death nonetheless, and so the topic is close to my mind.
On driving to my house, my parents were discussing what I might have done with Garnet's body after she died. One thought that I might have buried her body, because I really loved my gerbil. The other thought that I would be too practical to do something like that.
I just threw her body out in the dumpster.
You will note that I said her body. Garnet wasn't there. Her little gerbil soul had left its corrupted, earthly tent (as Paul called it). Unfortunately, we have no promise as to where it went, but what I threw out was certainly not my cute, little gerbil, Garnet. Garnet was gone.
Whenever I have seen a dead human body, it has been the same. It was hard to recognize which person resided in that body. Nothing looks so nasty as a dead body, no matter how much makeup is applied by the funeral people. C.S. Lewis, in Surprised by Joy phrases it such after telling about going "to see it" (his mother's dead body): "To this day I do not know what they mean when they call dead bodies beautiful. The ugliest man alive is an angel of beauty compared with the loveliest of the dead." I could not say it better or agree more strongly. I used to find my gerbil girl wonderfully cute; what I threw out was an ugly, dead rodent body.
But what I have spoken about is death, not dying. If I sound uncaring and hard in my views on death, I can tell you that seeing my poor gerbil suffering before death almost brought me to tears. (Yes, I am a guy, and sometimes I shed tears.) I grieved in the way that David did when his first son by Bathsheba died. I grieved while Garnet was dying; as soon as Garnet died, it was over and beyond my control. I could do nothing but try to go on. I say try. I was in a terrible mood the rest of the night. I found it hard to motivate myself to do anything. But I can't say that I really grieved. I grieved while she was dying.
My chief concern now is for Ruby, who has been through a lot herself with stupid, biting bugs, a trip to the doctors, a constantly-changing cage, shots, force-feeding of antibiotics, and a missing sister. She is now quite the expensive little gerbil. She seems to be okay and healthy -- albeit, a little confused, perhaps -- but then, Garnet seemed to get sick and die in only a day. But I am hopeful.
Now, in fairness, there is a big difference between a gerbil dying and a friend dying. When Garnet died, I lost a cute, little, furry, ball of fluffy fun, but I cannot say that I lost a friend and confident. I did not really have good communication with her as I cannot speak Gerbilic.
I have never really mourned for anyone I have known who has died. This is because I believe very strongly in the eternal. If I do believe in the eternal, than for the people I knew who died, death is actually a happy time. Should I not be happy for them as well? They are free from the pains of this world. So if I am sad, it is mourning my own loss -- which is natural and there is nothing wrong with that. But dying is a time of sadness for the person dying and the rest. Till now, though, I have not suffered the loss of a friend.
And I know that this would cause me grief, because I know that loss of communication with people I love/loved causes me grief. As long as I have some method of communication with another, I actually can connect with who they are as a person. I do not need to have him or her present to connect with his or her soul in today's world. (The one exception would be with someone with whom touch is an important form of communication for me.)
I think I shall stop know. I could go on about funerals themselves, but I can wait till later....
death,
soul