It is interesting when you are an outsider on looking a body that is fighting to survive, like a well built machine. At present I have watched two admirable people’s souls leave their body and watch the mechanics of the nervous system shutting down. Can they see me? Can they hear me? or can they simply feel me?
Are they still the modest, humble people not wanting us to fuss over them? or are they at peace? or is there nothing?
The same questions are asked about those who we do not see leave but have still left. They are gone.
It is hard to know. It is unknown.
The mind and its consciousness is a vast, open and complicated space, running a million miles an hour and as progressing humans we ask so many questions, every second of every moment of every day. The topic of death or life after death or rather, life during death, is a well discussed ordeal with many opinions and debate. What does one think and feel during our final moments? In the end, in my opinion, it is always you, your choice and your belief. We always want what is best for our loved ones in life, thereafter and during departure – but how are we to know.
Eulogy: “a speech or piece of writing that praises someone or something highly, especially a tribute to someone who has just died”
Is a eulogy really in tribute of a person, or is it for the solace for those left behind? for the life after death. Humans are so strange, experiencing grief in different ways and sometimes not at all.
Death represents a change. For me, it is when you want the world to stop, like it has for the loved one lost, just for a moment, but it simply keeps going. We keep moving. We see things in ways we never saw before. We see other people in different lights. We change.
I cannot tell you how to grieve or the correct way for it. But I can tell you that the world will not stop, no matter how hard you wish it would. I am a creature of habit and I do not welcome change openly, in any aspect of my life, including death. I question change.
When I see these things, these people differently, I feel disappointment and I feel alone. I feel alone inside my vast and open mind. I think and I see things which the common human would choose to ignore or accept. I am frustrated in what feels like lies circling around me. But after everything I have been through, I have come to realize that, like a eulogy, it is a coping mechanism for life after death. People need to flourish in stories, remembering things in a way that makes them feel like they loved and were loved by said person; and it is almost taboo to question these stories or newly formatted realities. I am sure that I too am guilty of such qualities.
Why does the mind do this? What is to live if only to die? Why are we different? and why do we reformat moments to live on after death if only to depart ourselves? Why do people leave us? Why do some people want to leave us?
I guess, without ending in yet another question, to conclude I will leave you with this: At the end of the day, during your life and perhaps during your departure you will know your truth and that, my friend, will be all that mattered.
Walnut Wednesday 