Note: This is a republication of an older writing of mine, from April 30th, 2007. Hasn't been on this site before. This isn't an article for religious debates; please leave that out of this and stay focused on the actual point. Enjoy.
When I am dead and gone, those who mourn (under the assumption that there are those who would mourn such a passing at that time) will not mourn the ceasation of my heart beat. Nor the crackling electrical current of neural pathways. No, what is mourned at most, if not all funerals, is the loss of a point of view. Call it what you will - a spark, a soul, a personality. It doesn't matter what you call it because it's gone from you, and save for those who are very well at peace with the way things work, this is the last chance to say goodbye, and even then that person is slipping away like smoke trying to be grasped in ones fist.
I knew a family, once. The father, the mother and their only child. The child, a boy, was about 13 when this happened. About to enter high school. Anyway, his father and a bunch of buddies take an RV down to the States. What for, I can't recall specifically. Some car race or something. The guy was a dentist so it's not like he was a hick. Anyway. They park off on the side of the road somewhere, and back into a clearing. Problem is, one way or another the exhaust pipe gets clogged up with mud. A short while later, they all drift off to sleep as the carbon monoxide slowly suffocates them. And, eventually, they died.
There's not much uglier than a wife discovering she's a widow and a boy finding out he's halfway to being an orphan.
The funeral comes and everyone brings pictures or writings or other little mementos from the man. And the now-widow is trying to be so brave, you can see it. Every muscle in her body is clenched in a desperate grip on the edge of a cliff, and as each photo comes in it gets harder for her. My family had had that family at a cottage we rented that summer, so we had some that were very recent. Vacation pictures, I suppose. And the widow slowly goes through each and every one, and you can see her face is beginning to break. Then, finally, she bawls. Picture of her and her late husband kicking back, having a beer and a burger. I'm sure that wasn't the first time she'd broken during that time, and I'm sure it wasn't the last either.
The son spent his time trying to be stoic about it, if I remember things correctly. You could see the despair in his face but damn, he tried to be brave. For his mum or himself, I dunno. Both maybe.
Funnily enough, that summer at the cottage the now deceased wondered aloud what things were like when you died. My mum told him what she believed in (essentially that good acts are what count). He seemed relieved that you didn't have to subscribe to a single church or anything (because lets face it, picking an organized religion in the hopes its the only right one is like playing russian roulette only the gun has five of its six chambers loaded rather than one). Mum also said that on the day we got the call about his death (but before the call about his death), she saw him sitting in the kitchen, in flowing golden robes. Why he appeared to Mum is a mystery; he was better friends with Dad. Maybe only because Mum believed in enough to permit it. Maybe the man just didn't want to stir shit up in the middle of the working day which, if that's the case, was rather courteous. Or maybe it was just the visit itself that was courteous, if you subscribe to the "spirits can visit anywhere" theory.
I mean, c'mon. Free visit to Disneyworld.
Anyway. The body of the man. He looked at peace, or enough at peace, I suppose. But it wasn't the same. This was the sort of guy who brimmed with vibrancy without having to move much. Animated, even if he was just relaxing and talking. And privately I thought "this isn't really him". Oh, sure enough, it was the body that had done everything. But it wasn't what people were mourning. I'm not sure how well I can put this next part into words, but I'll try: They mourned the loss of the person who inhabited that body. That mixture of beliefs and quirks and chemical balances and whatever else makes the way you behave. The software, not the hardware. About the only good thing to be said about his passing was that at least he died happy and peaceful.
That's one example of a sad passing.
The other is my Grandma. Fathers side. Well. She was a tough old bird and I swear she died nine times before finally staying dead. Not really a pleasant death, either. She'd kept her claws dug into life so fiercely that her finally dying was a release, not an entrapment. In a way we were thankful for it. But there was something that unnerved me about it. And it was this.
"Will I go to hell?"
"No, no. You're going to see Gods flowers. You're one of his special flowers yourself."
"Like hell I am. I don't damn well deserve to."
She practically spat the words, as if the concept of God forgiving and welcoming her was like bitter, dry ash on her tongue. She died after all her flab and muscle wasted away, leaving nothing but skin, bone, and shriveled, weak internal organs, not even resembling the woman she was in life, the somewhat fat, smiling face that puffed cigarettes replaced by shriveled skin tightened over a fragile skull to the point where you could almost see the bone. She basically died of starvation because her body couldn't even process food well enough. Her final drinks were from the tip of a sponge dipped in juice or water, or a small ice shaving placed on her lips, because that was all she could handle. She knew she was very, very dearly loved. I don't know what she did that made her so full of self hate in the end. It's probably none of my damned business, either. All I do know is she spent her last days slowly wasting away, full of self loathing over something she would never confess, body wasting away to nothingness as she slowly died, losing the capability to talk, then to move, then to see, then to hear and then finally passing.
I've made a promise to myself that if ever I am in such a position I will rent a car, put a brick on the accelerator, and drive directly into a tornado. At least then the end will come quickly and I'll probably provide some really, really fucking cool scenes for a movie.
If you've made it this far you have the patience of a saint. This is a long, depressing read, and you're probably wondering what the point is.
It's this.
Life ends. Sometimes really quick. Sometimes long after you start craving it to release you. The point is it ends and you don't know when you'll die, or who you'll leave behind, or what you'll be able to say as your last words, if you're even cognizant that you're speaking last words. So, mean what you say. Say what you mean. Love openly, and be honest with people. Be sure that when you die, you have nothing to hate yourself for. Apologize and provide a chance for others to apologize. Because the next day you'll be dead, and it'll be too late.
There'll be people who take that to heart. There'll be people who are too afraid, or too selfish, to do that. There are people for whom that will be incredibly painful, and they don't have the strength, or courage, to brave it.
I don't blame them. Some situations, I'm not even the one in the wrong and I don't have the courage to face them.
Just try to leave respectful, if not outright good, memories for both yourself and others to cherish when it's all done. That's all that you need to do with life, I guess.
Night, folks.
