On Death

I've been engaged in conversations about life lately, and as I was writing tonight, I found something I wrote about death back in October. We view death and life as paradoxical extremes, but I don't know if that's true or not. These paragraphs speak of death as beautiful, and at the same time, I realize that the whole process of death can be bitter, terrifying, and ugly. Can the two be one? Anyway, the post.

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We're afraid of death. As a culture we want to live a long time, and have a painless death, and there be guaranteed the peace of happy eternal existence. That's not a bad hope... The truth is, no one knows what death is like, and no one knows what death will bring, so we're scared of it. Perhaps we should be. But we don't even talk about it--not until we're standing over cocktail weenies at a funeral, and even then we're saying trite, meaningless things like, "Well, at least he's in a better place now," and "She would have wanted it this way."

How do we know what she would have wanted, what kind of place he's in if we never talk about it? It's morbid to talk about death. Instead of it being a healthy and necessary curiosity, it's a secret thing only the depressed and dying think about.

I think about death, I always have, especially m own. I always think about how people will react to it, as if their reactions and grief would be something I could watch from an invisible perch on the wall.

I want my own death to be something talked about, candidly, without fear and hesitation. I want people to think about mortality, and [the existence of] God, and perhaps most of all, each other. I want my death to allow people to see how much they really need other people. When I die, I want people to find healing in each other--through the love they can offer, through stories that won't fall on deaf ears, through shared meals and silent hugs, through meandering down neighborhood streets where life's essential questions are asked and challenged, through the community of connection with other people. I want people to enjoy their lover's body, I want people to pay attention to the warmth of the heart next to them, the feel of a person in their hands.

I want the healing of my loss to be found in the commonality of grief and love.

Grievers, be comforted...seek your ability to love another person. If you need to, sit amongst my things and remember. Know that I was happy. I would want people to know that I was happy, and that my moments of unhappiness were only because of things still not experiences, and not because of pain....Experience your life, love your life and the people in it.

We are so comfortable in the things of our life, when really, I think the prospect of all that is really in the world--truly seeing and knowing the true beauty made in creation--if we understood that, we should never be comfortable.

I think death touches that chord of true beauty in our souls--death shows us that things are transient, and even such a think as intangible as our connection with another person can be broken, that its bitter ripping away from ourselves leaves us with a would we aren't sure how to heal.

Death makes pain natural, and healing a discovery. Death should make us know we are meant for other people.