For Mary
Someone I care about has died.
What is death? Honestly, I don't understand it at all. It can't be to let us feel alive, because if anything I've only ever felt numb. There is a stiff, leaden feeling somewhere inside of my chest. Maybe I'm just feeling the weight of my heart.
At first there are just the words, but they seem cheap and faraway like some tasteless sort of notion, but then you come to realize that the words in fact form a sentence, and one of surprising depth and importance, and then you beg yourself to feel something. For every second that you don't cry, you are thinking not of the deceased but of yourself. It becomes some shoe of vanity and self doubt: "Am I heartless? What sort of monster am I? Did I ever love them at all?" When the grief finally sets in, that is when you forget yourself, probably for the first time in a long time, and for what will be the last time in a while.
Crying is the largest number we can do for the dead, but why do we do it? Why do we weep? Is it because we realize that we will never see or talk to that person again; that every already-fleeting memory is a last one and piece to the broken mosaic that can no longer be repaired? That they were a good person? Is it because they had a family, not to mention years ahead of them? My sadness is nothing compared to that which her daughters and family must feel. It'll probably take them months to reach my simple misery, and how much happier they'll be then. Is it because it makes you question the convenience of the afterlife? It's a terribly depressing thought that there are no angels waiting to baby us, and instead the most we have to look forward to is a thin wooden box or a cool cannister.
Does it out the fear of death back in us? Damn right it does. To die, to have left no legacy, to have but a handful of people who'll talk about us awkwardly, with embarrassing tales and wistful half-sentences. One day we'll be forgotten completely. It's bound to happen, regardless of who you are: Walt Disney, Adolph Hitler, William Shakespeare. Think of all the great people who have lived who's name we can no longer recall. In a couple of centuries they'll just be the edge of a shadow - so how long could our little memory possible have, never mind our number of offspring.
I wonder if she knew at all, in any form, when she woke up that morning that that was going to be her last little go at life. Maybe a littling nagging voice in the back of her head suggesting that she stay in and catch up on some reading instead. I wonder if she knew that she was dying as it happened, or that she was dead afterwards.
I hate death. I hate it so much. I hate how we know nothing about it and how it's impossible to find anything out. I hate the endlessness of it all, how it comes to everyone but how there's no escaping it., how it could happen anytime in any way. We all entertain little fantasies of immortality, thinking "What if I am the one who shall never die?" I can't even see it happening to me, and I suppose that is what makes me so angry. I wish that I knew how and when it would happen, but then I'm glad that I don't. It's a paradox, just like death and everything death-related.
Is there eternity or not? If there is, am I going to Heaven or sinking straight to Hell? Is this all we have? What is the meaning of life? What is love? What is my place? Where do I fit inside of this huge matrix of comings and goings and dealings? In a cosmic sense I am a speck of dirt, 'quintessence of dust', un grain du sable. Will my tiny death mean anything? Can it mean anything? Is there an order or a reason to anything we do?
What is the point? Is there a point? Why should we bother if there isn't?
Tell me about my death.
I want to know.
I have a family and friends, people who love me and people whom I love. But when time erodes all of this, then what will remain? Who will remember me in one hundred years? What about Albert Einstein? Mary Butler?
I wish I didn't care. I wish that I had the ability to express myself more eloquently. I wish that this experience had transformed me into a new and wiser man. I wish that I were smart enough not to have to worry about such broad and boundless matters. I hate how I made this whole thing about me, and how already I'm starting to feel better, I wish that I had cried more - but why? I wish I could go to her funeral to watch others weep and exchange whimsical half-sentences. I wish I knew where she was right now - if she's just in a freezer, or if her soul is sifting through the universe like a gossamer curtain, shimmering with all the answers that make me feel so frenzied and hapless.
I hope that she's happy, and that she knows how much I appreciated and loved her, even if I made the odd joke behind her or didn't visit as much as I should have. I hope she knows all of the things that I never said but are burning within me now. She had such high hopes and faith for me; more so than I think she she should have. I want to make her proud. I want to create a legacy. I want to live, if only for an instant, if only to extenuate the darkness.
I want, I want, I want...
But I know that at the end of it all, nothing can change, and that the harder we try the faster we are running towards a wall.
Now you see me, now you don't.
What is death? Honestly, I don't understand it at all. It can't be to let us feel alive, because if anything I've only ever felt numb. There is a stiff, leaden feeling somewhere inside of my chest. Maybe I'm just feeling the weight of my heart.
At first there are just the words, but they seem cheap and faraway like some tasteless sort of notion, but then you come to realize that the words in fact form a sentence, and one of surprising depth and importance, and then you beg yourself to feel something. For every second that you don't cry, you are thinking not of the deceased but of yourself. It becomes some shoe of vanity and self doubt: "Am I heartless? What sort of monster am I? Did I ever love them at all?" When the grief finally sets in, that is when you forget yourself, probably for the first time in a long time, and for what will be the last time in a while.
Crying is the largest number we can do for the dead, but why do we do it? Why do we weep? Is it because we realize that we will never see or talk to that person again; that every already-fleeting memory is a last one and piece to the broken mosaic that can no longer be repaired? That they were a good person? Is it because they had a family, not to mention years ahead of them? My sadness is nothing compared to that which her daughters and family must feel. It'll probably take them months to reach my simple misery, and how much happier they'll be then. Is it because it makes you question the convenience of the afterlife? It's a terribly depressing thought that there are no angels waiting to baby us, and instead the most we have to look forward to is a thin wooden box or a cool cannister.
Does it out the fear of death back in us? Damn right it does. To die, to have left no legacy, to have but a handful of people who'll talk about us awkwardly, with embarrassing tales and wistful half-sentences. One day we'll be forgotten completely. It's bound to happen, regardless of who you are: Walt Disney, Adolph Hitler, William Shakespeare. Think of all the great people who have lived who's name we can no longer recall. In a couple of centuries they'll just be the edge of a shadow - so how long could our little memory possible have, never mind our number of offspring.
I wonder if she knew at all, in any form, when she woke up that morning that that was going to be her last little go at life. Maybe a littling nagging voice in the back of her head suggesting that she stay in and catch up on some reading instead. I wonder if she knew that she was dying as it happened, or that she was dead afterwards.
I hate death. I hate it so much. I hate how we know nothing about it and how it's impossible to find anything out. I hate the endlessness of it all, how it comes to everyone but how there's no escaping it., how it could happen anytime in any way. We all entertain little fantasies of immortality, thinking "What if I am the one who shall never die?" I can't even see it happening to me, and I suppose that is what makes me so angry. I wish that I knew how and when it would happen, but then I'm glad that I don't. It's a paradox, just like death and everything death-related.
Is there eternity or not? If there is, am I going to Heaven or sinking straight to Hell? Is this all we have? What is the meaning of life? What is love? What is my place? Where do I fit inside of this huge matrix of comings and goings and dealings? In a cosmic sense I am a speck of dirt, 'quintessence of dust', un grain du sable. Will my tiny death mean anything? Can it mean anything? Is there an order or a reason to anything we do?
What is the point? Is there a point? Why should we bother if there isn't?
Tell me about my death.
I want to know.
I have a family and friends, people who love me and people whom I love. But when time erodes all of this, then what will remain? Who will remember me in one hundred years? What about Albert Einstein? Mary Butler?
I wish I didn't care. I wish that I had the ability to express myself more eloquently. I wish that this experience had transformed me into a new and wiser man. I wish that I were smart enough not to have to worry about such broad and boundless matters. I hate how I made this whole thing about me, and how already I'm starting to feel better, I wish that I had cried more - but why? I wish I could go to her funeral to watch others weep and exchange whimsical half-sentences. I wish I knew where she was right now - if she's just in a freezer, or if her soul is sifting through the universe like a gossamer curtain, shimmering with all the answers that make me feel so frenzied and hapless.
I hope that she's happy, and that she knows how much I appreciated and loved her, even if I made the odd joke behind her or didn't visit as much as I should have. I hope she knows all of the things that I never said but are burning within me now. She had such high hopes and faith for me; more so than I think she she should have. I want to make her proud. I want to create a legacy. I want to live, if only for an instant, if only to extenuate the darkness.
I want, I want, I want...
But I know that at the end of it all, nothing can change, and that the harder we try the faster we are running towards a wall.
Now you see me, now you don't.