Without getting overly sentimental looking back, gazing on the nostalgic boo-hoo nonsense of love, life, and losing. The loss of friends and relatives rapidly increases as we approach our own demise. The fond memories of loved ones or the random chaos and mayhem of the dead and dying. Too many deceased friends and acquaintances; I confess, the concept of friendship and death's inevitable certainty leads to its own end. The whole thing has always pissed me off. The finality of life isn’t optional.
I get angry when people die. Not for the obvious reasons, like you’ll never see them again. It’s robbing us of some valuable commodity. It could be years of no direct contact between friends or family or merely a few days. You may not see someone for decades, but when you do, it’s like you never left. I’m no expert on death and dying. I can only imagine the process and ultimate outcome. No one knows what happens in the afterlife any more than they know what will happen next week or an hour from now. I know less every day.
You can make plans, mark your calendar, and make a list of things to do and places to go. People to meet. To live like there's no tomorrow, but mountains eventually crumble, trees fall, flies get swatted by rolled-up newspapers, and assorted critters are inhumanly exterminated with pesticides. Sometimes humans are exterminated on purpose by other humans too. Random livestock is efficiently slaughtered for food, or wild things get run over and flattened into unlucky lumps of furry roadkill. Bugs accidentally stepped on or stomped on purposely, even tortured by cruel little children. Genocide, euthanasia, suicide, infanticide, murder, heinous acts of war, collateral damage, and destruction.
Fires, floods, earthquakes, and other natural disasters. Humans can and will suffer innumerable tragic maladies and mishaps. They linger at death's door, sometimes for years. Nothing lasts longer than the end date. Yet, the date suggested isn’t always carved on a gravestone. Civilizations come and go. Tomorrow holds no promise for longevity. We aren’t durable. It’s all figured in the design of life’s preordained plan. Calculated by unfeeling gods in the dream inside a dream, obscured by the mind’s eye. The specter waits there in the shadows of a circular cranial room space known as the skull.
As kids, we watched Saturday morning cartoons regularly. Just as regular on those Saturday mornings, the phone would ring. My parents, usually my mom, would answer, and we could hear her voice in the background. Oh no, not so and so. What happened? I’ll pray for them. Another friend or relative died. Weekends were the best time to call people about life-or-death situations because they’d be too busy living and working during the week to stop for death.
The concept of dying escaped our childish attention spans. It was beyond our comprehension. It didn’t matter to us. That was until my grandmother died. I was six, going on seven. All the relatives and friends of the family were there in the living room eating and drinking after the funeral service. I kept asking where Grandma was. The adults were evasive. She’s in heaven now, they told me. Well, okay, then I’ll go to heaven now and see her. No, you must wait until it’s your turn. What? I want to see her now! I started crying. They gave me some candy to shut me up. I didn’t know it then, but I was being conditioned to believe that death was a reward for those lucky enough to get to heaven. The rest of us here on earth got candy until it was our turn. A silly concept, but it made sense to a simple kid. But would it be as sweet?
All the important questions answered by the church or those in positions of authority weren’t true. I learned that the hard way. There’s no easy way out. The odds were stacked against us in wasted years of loss and regret. Missed opportunities and the best chances of survival were the only success we ever had. Any day breathing is a good day. I can’t speak for others, but I’ve lived fooled into believing that this farce held meaning. The mystery of this world is an open book with illustrations. Follow the pictures. Snapshots of events that appear unrelated, connecting the dots between us like stars in the night sky. Where’s the candy?