Consumed
I am young, maybe eleven, and it's after bed time. The mattress is slightler harder than I'd like and the duvet is a little stuff. I'm in my Grandmothers house and I am terrified of death. I don't want to die. I don't want anyone to die. I pray to God in my confusion even though I do not believe in God and I can taste the salty warmness of the tears that have been streaming down my cheeks. When I was this age I used to often work myself up in this way.
I'm a little older and on my own watching old home videos. Everyone is smiling and laughing and they have that odd crackly aural quality you only get in bad camcorders. I come to a part with Grandmother cradling my brother when he was still a baby and saying two words that I cannot remember as the camera pans past. For some reason I pause the tape, rewind to just before the two words, and hit play. I keep doing this until the scene looses all meaning. The words just become dissasociated syllables and the panning just a brief glimpse and I get very upset. Over and over and over I do this. The situation has suddenly become very intense and meaningful. Someday my Grandmother will die. I hope that my family is special and will live forever and somehow in my childlike way I convince myself that if I hope strongly enough and passionately enough then I will make it not be true. She and I and all my family will be here forever.
It is many years later and Grandma has lost her mind. She is telling us she is going to die and we all believe her. We do not know she has lost her mind yet. We have no idea what to do and my world is falling apart. She keeps telling us that she is going to go now then trying to fall asleep and I don't know what to do. She wont die. Her soul is still clinging to her body by a thread. In the coming weeks I will wish for her to just pass over peacefully and feel terrible for doing so but right now I just want her to get better.
Grandma is dead. I walk into the room where she still lays on the hospital bed, mouth open, flesh yellowed further up and a darker red further down. She is motionless. Completely still. It feels like the air is thick somehow and everyone is trying to put on faltering blubbering smiles for mine and my brothers benefit. My mind is immediately cast back to the bodyworlds exhibit. At the machine like quality. Grandma's ghost in the machine has left and it's very obvious. It's surprising how the brain percieves the absolute lack of any micromovements in breathing and pulse and whathaveyou. What I am looking at is a shell. A totally silent and immobile shell. I hug the shell, which is still warm, and it feels odd that it is still warm. I choke on my words but am glad we are not immortal. She would not have wanted to live the indignity of her life for much longer I'm sure of it
I am sitting at home with a Douglas Coupland book and a large mug of tea. It's night time but I haven't taken the funeral clothes off all day. I guess I see it as symbolic somehow, but havn't formed in my mind why. I'm feeling odd and serene. Sometimes memories come and my eyes well up but I understand she had to go. It's funny but last night, before I went to bed, I had no agitation about today. I actually felt warm and fuzzy somehow. I was happy and at peace. I'd like to think I still am.
I'm a little older and on my own watching old home videos. Everyone is smiling and laughing and they have that odd crackly aural quality you only get in bad camcorders. I come to a part with Grandmother cradling my brother when he was still a baby and saying two words that I cannot remember as the camera pans past. For some reason I pause the tape, rewind to just before the two words, and hit play. I keep doing this until the scene looses all meaning. The words just become dissasociated syllables and the panning just a brief glimpse and I get very upset. Over and over and over I do this. The situation has suddenly become very intense and meaningful. Someday my Grandmother will die. I hope that my family is special and will live forever and somehow in my childlike way I convince myself that if I hope strongly enough and passionately enough then I will make it not be true. She and I and all my family will be here forever.
It is many years later and Grandma has lost her mind. She is telling us she is going to die and we all believe her. We do not know she has lost her mind yet. We have no idea what to do and my world is falling apart. She keeps telling us that she is going to go now then trying to fall asleep and I don't know what to do. She wont die. Her soul is still clinging to her body by a thread. In the coming weeks I will wish for her to just pass over peacefully and feel terrible for doing so but right now I just want her to get better.
Grandma is dead. I walk into the room where she still lays on the hospital bed, mouth open, flesh yellowed further up and a darker red further down. She is motionless. Completely still. It feels like the air is thick somehow and everyone is trying to put on faltering blubbering smiles for mine and my brothers benefit. My mind is immediately cast back to the bodyworlds exhibit. At the machine like quality. Grandma's ghost in the machine has left and it's very obvious. It's surprising how the brain percieves the absolute lack of any micromovements in breathing and pulse and whathaveyou. What I am looking at is a shell. A totally silent and immobile shell. I hug the shell, which is still warm, and it feels odd that it is still warm. I choke on my words but am glad we are not immortal. She would not have wanted to live the indignity of her life for much longer I'm sure of it
I am sitting at home with a Douglas Coupland book and a large mug of tea. It's night time but I haven't taken the funeral clothes off all day. I guess I see it as symbolic somehow, but havn't formed in my mind why. I'm feeling odd and serene. Sometimes memories come and my eyes well up but I understand she had to go. It's funny but last night, before I went to bed, I had no agitation about today. I actually felt warm and fuzzy somehow. I was happy and at peace. I'd like to think I still am.