stupidoldbastid
Experienced
- Joined
- May 13, 2003
- Posts
- 48
When I was a child I knew little of death.
While I had attended a number of funerals, it was only as nature had intended that lives had been lived, bodies spent from the many miles and years had been waiting only for death to add its final chapter.
Death was a thing that visited its darkness and finality only those who were wrinkled and gray, those who had lived long lives in such a manner that they chose, or as closely to it as abilities and circumstances would allow.
At the ripe old age of eighteen in beautiful south-east Asia, I became very aware that death did not respect persons nor did that grim reaper have a preference to age. Life could be ripped very violently from young and healthy bodies ending possible bright futures, allowing sweet, beautiful dreams to die with what once was the embodiment of those dreams and futures.
These brothers with whom we lived, sweated, laughed, worked, shared memories, made more memories, those brothers whom we depended on, whose lives depended on us even as our lives depended on them, were not the wrinkled and grayed bodies that we accepted, that we expected to be taken.
The circumstances did not allow time to mourn, nor even to honor those that had so unexpectedly been ripped from us, we had to continue the immediate task, to take the next step, pushing by some manner the horror and deep loss into the background of our minds, into some unseen folds of our hearts to perhaps be revisited at some other time when or if circumstances would allow it.
We must go on.
We could show no weakness.
We must be strong.
Yet as we struggled forward with no outward signs, we could not push back the recent memories and severe sense of loss.
In our minds, hearts, even our very souls we did mourn and we were filled with doubts of so many differing emotions.
Did we leave things unsaid, or perhaps had we said things in a moment of fancy that should not have been uttered aloud?
Was there something that we could have perhaps done just a little different that would have changed the horrible outcome that we had been forced to witness?
Fear would rise up in some bitter bile with the knowledge that it could have very easily been us, would seem to wed in a vulgar satanic mating with the guilt that we were so happy that it wasn’t us.
How could the human mind endure so many conflicting thoughts and emotions?
Loss, worry, fear, thankfulness, guilt were all wrapped by the heavy need to somehow feel alive ourselves, to somehow prove our own indestructibility, that we knew was obviously not so indestructible was we would wish to believe.
Many years have since passed, I find that the funerals of family, friends and acquaintances that I feel obligated to attend are more and more people of near my own age or in many cases even younger and I must somehow reconcile those losses, guilty feelings, needs to feel alive with the certain knowledge that I am now much closer to the end of this journey than to the beginning.
I am strong.
I stand tall.
I openly wipe the tears of mourning from my cheeks, my head held high, my eyes never turning from those who look my way.
I openly acknowledge that I may be next and I wonder why I have so many times feared death yet failed to live.
Failed to do things that meant nothing to others, but searched for an outlet, for release, for action on my part, but were shoved aside, shelved because it would serve no purpose except for my own entertainment, my own pleasure, my own selfish self interest, instead forcing myself to respectably suffer through self imposed obligations and the expectations of others.
Perhaps lost life is less a loss than the loss suffered by those among us who have refused to really live.
While I had attended a number of funerals, it was only as nature had intended that lives had been lived, bodies spent from the many miles and years had been waiting only for death to add its final chapter.
Death was a thing that visited its darkness and finality only those who were wrinkled and gray, those who had lived long lives in such a manner that they chose, or as closely to it as abilities and circumstances would allow.
At the ripe old age of eighteen in beautiful south-east Asia, I became very aware that death did not respect persons nor did that grim reaper have a preference to age. Life could be ripped very violently from young and healthy bodies ending possible bright futures, allowing sweet, beautiful dreams to die with what once was the embodiment of those dreams and futures.
These brothers with whom we lived, sweated, laughed, worked, shared memories, made more memories, those brothers whom we depended on, whose lives depended on us even as our lives depended on them, were not the wrinkled and grayed bodies that we accepted, that we expected to be taken.
The circumstances did not allow time to mourn, nor even to honor those that had so unexpectedly been ripped from us, we had to continue the immediate task, to take the next step, pushing by some manner the horror and deep loss into the background of our minds, into some unseen folds of our hearts to perhaps be revisited at some other time when or if circumstances would allow it.
We must go on.
We could show no weakness.
We must be strong.
Yet as we struggled forward with no outward signs, we could not push back the recent memories and severe sense of loss.
In our minds, hearts, even our very souls we did mourn and we were filled with doubts of so many differing emotions.
Did we leave things unsaid, or perhaps had we said things in a moment of fancy that should not have been uttered aloud?
Was there something that we could have perhaps done just a little different that would have changed the horrible outcome that we had been forced to witness?
Fear would rise up in some bitter bile with the knowledge that it could have very easily been us, would seem to wed in a vulgar satanic mating with the guilt that we were so happy that it wasn’t us.
How could the human mind endure so many conflicting thoughts and emotions?
Loss, worry, fear, thankfulness, guilt were all wrapped by the heavy need to somehow feel alive ourselves, to somehow prove our own indestructibility, that we knew was obviously not so indestructible was we would wish to believe.
Many years have since passed, I find that the funerals of family, friends and acquaintances that I feel obligated to attend are more and more people of near my own age or in many cases even younger and I must somehow reconcile those losses, guilty feelings, needs to feel alive with the certain knowledge that I am now much closer to the end of this journey than to the beginning.
I am strong.
I stand tall.
I openly wipe the tears of mourning from my cheeks, my head held high, my eyes never turning from those who look my way.
I openly acknowledge that I may be next and I wonder why I have so many times feared death yet failed to live.
Failed to do things that meant nothing to others, but searched for an outlet, for release, for action on my part, but were shoved aside, shelved because it would serve no purpose except for my own entertainment, my own pleasure, my own selfish self interest, instead forcing myself to respectably suffer through self imposed obligations and the expectations of others.
Perhaps lost life is less a loss than the loss suffered by those among us who have refused to really live.
