All kinds of dying
Sep. 28th, 2005 04:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
zenmondoI have been thinking about all the ways that someone can die. I don't mean the difference between having a heart attack, and getting hit by a train. What I mean is the way we all drift in and out of each other's lives. There are all kinds of dying, and not all of them involve the shuffling off of a mortal coil. That is the final death, the one there is no coming back from, but there are other kinds of dying, in which ressurection is an option.
I think I have gone through many kinds of dying with my father. Just shy of two years ago, I lost my father to the final death, but he and I had died many times before that. The nature of death is seperation, and my father and I spent more time apart than we ever did together. We were dead to each other for most of my life. And now that he is seperated from me forever, that margin will just continue to grow. But that is just the final death, in many ways, my father still lives within me. Just thinking about him is a small ressurection, I guess.
Dying happens in the heart. These are the deaths that come when you excise someone from your life. When you stop seeing, talking, thinking, and feeling about them. When you don't give them any attention. When you decide they no longer count. Sometimes this is done with something as innocent as inattention. Sometimes, it is done intentionally. I really don't know if one hurts more than the other.
We build these barriers in our hearts that seperate us from those around us. I don't know why we do this, but I think it might be a fear of loss -- a fear of loss on terms we cannot control. When a loved one like a parent or a friend is removed from this plane, there is nothing we can do about it. It feels like an attack on our spirit. It is something so big and out of our control. Its fucking scarey. It feels so unfair. The other kinds of death... the way we just stop talking to someone, those are tiny, those are in our power, and we have the power to take it back, but it still feels unfair to the person who has been "killed" -- if they notice.
Sometimes there is a kind of dying when the person you thought someone was turns out to be something very different. Again, I saw this in my father. When I was young, my father was the standard by which I judged all other people. Even when he broke my heart and disapeared, I constructed in my heart an ideal father, and this fairy-tale father was the subject of my worship. There came a time, when I realized or learned that the father I carried in my heart was an illusion, and this knowledge felt like another death. To see someone as they are instead of who you wish them to be is a tragic thing indeed. This is a neccessary death, for the bliss of ignorance is much less valuable than the pain of knowledge.
There is hope in the ressurection. Ressurections feel great. There is one that lights my heart up to this day. When my Father was dying, so was my friend Brandon. He and I often lost touch with one another. A very tiny death, but we always seemed to find each other again, and our ressurections took place like a death never occured. I was fortunate to see him in the hospital when his family needed a break and got to spend a long time with him -- much longer than the short time allowed for non-family. We just sat there holding hands, and professing our love for one another, knowing that we had almost lost the chance to do so ever again. It was the most honest we had ever been with one another. He cried when he saw me, and said, "I knew you would come, I knew you would come." We were comfortable with our small deaths, for we were always confident that we would be part of each other's lives again -- things were not so certain at that point and the time for bullshit was over. It wasn't long after that that the final death has seperated me from him for the rest of my life. I don't know if there is an afterlife or not, but sometimes I hope there is, and my friend will greet me saying "I knew you would come."
I think I have gone through many kinds of dying with my father. Just shy of two years ago, I lost my father to the final death, but he and I had died many times before that. The nature of death is seperation, and my father and I spent more time apart than we ever did together. We were dead to each other for most of my life. And now that he is seperated from me forever, that margin will just continue to grow. But that is just the final death, in many ways, my father still lives within me. Just thinking about him is a small ressurection, I guess.
Dying happens in the heart. These are the deaths that come when you excise someone from your life. When you stop seeing, talking, thinking, and feeling about them. When you don't give them any attention. When you decide they no longer count. Sometimes this is done with something as innocent as inattention. Sometimes, it is done intentionally. I really don't know if one hurts more than the other.
We build these barriers in our hearts that seperate us from those around us. I don't know why we do this, but I think it might be a fear of loss -- a fear of loss on terms we cannot control. When a loved one like a parent or a friend is removed from this plane, there is nothing we can do about it. It feels like an attack on our spirit. It is something so big and out of our control. Its fucking scarey. It feels so unfair. The other kinds of death... the way we just stop talking to someone, those are tiny, those are in our power, and we have the power to take it back, but it still feels unfair to the person who has been "killed" -- if they notice.
Sometimes there is a kind of dying when the person you thought someone was turns out to be something very different. Again, I saw this in my father. When I was young, my father was the standard by which I judged all other people. Even when he broke my heart and disapeared, I constructed in my heart an ideal father, and this fairy-tale father was the subject of my worship. There came a time, when I realized or learned that the father I carried in my heart was an illusion, and this knowledge felt like another death. To see someone as they are instead of who you wish them to be is a tragic thing indeed. This is a neccessary death, for the bliss of ignorance is much less valuable than the pain of knowledge.
There is hope in the ressurection. Ressurections feel great. There is one that lights my heart up to this day. When my Father was dying, so was my friend Brandon. He and I often lost touch with one another. A very tiny death, but we always seemed to find each other again, and our ressurections took place like a death never occured. I was fortunate to see him in the hospital when his family needed a break and got to spend a long time with him -- much longer than the short time allowed for non-family. We just sat there holding hands, and professing our love for one another, knowing that we had almost lost the chance to do so ever again. It was the most honest we had ever been with one another. He cried when he saw me, and said, "I knew you would come, I knew you would come." We were comfortable with our small deaths, for we were always confident that we would be part of each other's lives again -- things were not so certain at that point and the time for bullshit was over. It wasn't long after that that the final death has seperated me from him for the rest of my life. I don't know if there is an afterlife or not, but sometimes I hope there is, and my friend will greet me saying "I knew you would come."
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Date: 2005-09-29 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
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