Thursday, August 28, 2008

On death and mourning minds ...

I almost find it hard to believe that my last entry on this blog is dated October 2007! Almost one year older and perhaps none the wiser!

Many things have happened in this interval, many questions were asked, many remained unanswered and, in the midst of everything, life just went on, undisturbed.

Without intending to give a detailed account of all the happenings in this period, I will just say that I have been obsessed with death lately.

It has been a sad period – two young women died – I lost a friend and someone whose disappearance saddened me terribly even though we had never been particularly close. The friend that died – I will name her M – had suffered for some time from breast cancer. She had a 6 year old daughter and was a single mother. Her whole life was a chain of misfortunes and her parents outlived her. Her daughter has been left in the care of the grandparents but these are hardly fit, in my opinion, to look after and provide for such a young child. The generation gap is too large, in this case, and it might turn out to have negative consequences for the child.

The other person that died, I will call her F, had two children – an 8 year old daughter and a 1 year old son and she died instantaneously in a car accident. Her car was hit by a truck and she just didn’t make it to the hospital or even to the moment when the ambulance showed up. Her children were left with their father.

Both deaths produced a very strong impression on me. I still have all M’s emails, from the time of her illness, emails in which she was describing her suffering, her hopes, her disappointments. Right up until the end, I think she strongly believed she would defeat the illness and escape death. And we, as her friends, fervently wanted to believe that too. But, deep down inside, everybody knew the truth.

My first and most overwhelming feeling I had, when I heard the awful news, was a strong disbelief. I simply could not bring myself to believe that they are no more. Even now, when I want to send a group email to my friends or to forward a joke, M’s email address pops up in the address field and I realise, over and over again, that I cannot contact her anymore. It is one of the strangest feelings I have ever had. It’s like they are no longer with us, they are in another world, maybe still here, invisible creatures looking at us.

Strange is that my 17 year old cat died sometime in April (or was it May? god, I can't even remember!). Coincidence, a really dark year. I loved this cat so much, even though she did not live with me for the last few years – I had to move her to my parents’ due to circumstances that prevented me from having her, as well as due to the amount of travel I am bound to undertake for my job. She was a family member and was loved by everybody. I dream about her quite often and wake up with a yearning to pet her silky hair, feel the wetness and coolness of her little muzzle, hear her ‘talk’ to me, see her follow me around in the house.

And then my thoughts drift away and I start thinking about my own death and wonder whether I am afraid of it or not, whether I am prepared for it or not. If I were to die tomorrow, would I be reconciled with the idea? Some may be of the opinion that nobody is prepared for that – ever. Maybe, maybe not. I think that one gradually learns to live with and accept the idea – especially as one grows older. Some old people even long to die – I have often heard my grandfather wondering when he will be re-united with my grandmother who died several years ago.

Yes, it definitely has been, as you see, a bleak period. Maybe it’s right and normal to ask all these questions. Or maybe I am just slowly going crazy. Maybe I will never know.