Dead end by Alshain4 on DeviantArt
When I think about my grandfather, I think about death. Maybe that's why, on this Era, we treat old people so bad. We don't want to see them, we don't want to hear them, we don't want to be them. Because we know, sooner or later, we'll be dead as well.
But death has no age. She's the perfect human being, actually. She doesn't distinguish between babies and grown-ups, boys or girls, Catholics or Muslims, the black from the white. The only certainty we have make us tremble, and yet we fear the uncertainty. As we never know when our time is to come.
Death always made me shiver. And I never believe when someone says to me they aren't afraid of it. Of her. They're just hiding in a time capsule, telling themselves they have still much time to think about it. To deal with it. We haven't.
Death is all around us. We hear it on the news every day, every second. But the death of those others are meaningless to us. We don't feel their pain. We feel compassion only for a few seconds, and then forget. When someone close to us die, we suffer for days, months and years. But once we get used to it, we forget it too. Our escape is our daily routine.
I'm not really afraid of dying. I'm afraid of remaining dead for eternity. Eternity is a long time, too much time. Eternity scares me no matter the shape it takes.
I wonder if there really is a time, or just an illusion we made for ourselves. The "now" is the only thing that seems real. My past, my memories are only on my brain, how can I be sure I captured it fully? (That's impossible...) They are just images mixed with emotions, too much similar with the ones I get from films and books and dreams. So alike that sometimes I get confused: I forget which ones were real and which were fiction. Well, they're all fiction now, anyway. And future... who knows there is one? I might not be here on the next very second. Eventually, the next second won't exist. The next second always makes me crumble. Nice play of words, isn't it? The next second is an empty void. My black-hole.
When I'm with my grandfather, I want to collect all his stories. They're a precious treasure for me. I don't know how much time he has for me, to share his world with me.
I never got to know him, I'm afraid I never will. My only grandfather. My family doesn't talk much about themselves, only a few happenings here and there. However, they're never enough to grasp their identity, their unique personality. I don't know who my grandfather is. And when I say my grandfather, I'm saying my mother and my father. My sisters and my cousins. My uncles or other relatives. When I say I don't know my own family, I'm saying I don't know a big part of myself: my history.
Maybe that's why we invented time. To know our history or inventing it as we please. Maybe we invented time in a strike of being immortals. Maybe that's why we do anything: to be what we never can - alive for eternity. That also scares me - to be alive eternally.
It will be perfect to switch between life and death. (But nothing is perfect, is it?) To have the chance to be another person and another being.
I'm wondering if there's a limit one can explore themselves: if we can reach our full potential at all sides, if we can know ourselves in all dimensions and situations. But, on the other hand, will that make sense? Is that a valid purpose for one's life? Will that mean live in eternity in a single body and soul? And do we have just one soul?
Life goes by really fast, terribly fast (and yet we get bored!). I'm almost 31 one years old and I didn't do half the things I want yet. I know many of my dreams won't see the light of day (or night) and I'm OK with that. Sort of. But it also feels I could have done more. I still have time (or have I?), let's start doing them!
At my teen years, I was very angry at death. I wanted to kill her. I lived in constant fear, insomniac. All my writing was about her. She was my muse. Ironic. She lived inside me when I didn't want her to meet me at all. Oh, but she knows me very well.
And I do want to meet her, I just don't want to be her. (Now I have this image on my head, of death as millions of people running after you.) Yes, I'd like to know how it feels to die. I want to know what being dead means, not what I suppose it is. Something like that episode of Dr. House. If death was another form of consciousness, I would have no problem at all to embrace it.
Although being a spooky subject, I have the necessity of talking about this happening that makes part of life, without making part of it. That destroys it while making space to create it. It's my way of understanding it, of taking away the fear. Even if I won't sleep at night after doing it. Or fill my mind with questions and fall asleep by exhaustion.
There are only two poetics sides of death, as I see it. The fact that everything comes from and goes to the same place (We Are All Made of Stars). And that we're sacrificing ourselves in order to others can experience this amazing gift. Right now, I'm thinking that my death will give room for my son to grow.
Even death has its good side, it appears. And eternity is a long time. They also say hope is the last thing to die. As long there's hope, anything can be possible. Maybe we will find a way of being dead, and yet to be alive (and not in a metaphorical way).
We live by choices. The only thing we can't choose is to stay alive. We can't choose to not die. However, we can decide how we want to live, we can decide how much we enjoy life. No matter for how much time we live, we can always take the most out of it. If it weren't death, will we experience life the best we could? Would it be such a precious gift? Would it be as wonderful to our eyes as it is now? Remember, the only thing worst than dying is to be already dead, while still alive.
The absolution of death creates the magic of life. Full stop.
(And while you're thinking about this, listen to my playlist having death as the main character. She's always here, no matter how you try to scare her away.)
