Death is instrumental in everything we do. Silent and omnipresent. Never saying a word while keeping an eye on our every move.
I personify Death by calling it: Dark Sister. A woman who takes life instead of giving it. She introduced herself to me in my tender years as I watched my grandmother slip away with the agony of Cancer. The doctor had said three months, it took a year and I sat by her bedside watching her fade with each cough of blood.
In the evenings we would talk. My Gran believed there was a God, a Heaven and a Hell. So I questioned her about all of this. I wanted to know what meant what. I wanted to understand what was happening. Why was she in such pain? Had she done something wrong? Couldn't this God make her better? She answered all of my questions and I ruminated before telling her that I really didn't like her God much.
With her passing I felt true injustice. The woman who had once fed me, taught me manners and shared her talent as a pianist with me was gone. Nothing was going to change that. When people said she had gone to a better place it felt more like a knife than a comfort. I knew it was a lie. These people were absent during her sickness. Too weak to face reality or grant a dying woman time in their presence. They wanted what once was and concluded with what they would like to believe. They weren't there when it counted. Preferring to behave like rats fleeing a sinking ship.
I don't remember the last thing my Gran said to me before she died but I do remember her bed laying empty, my Grandfather crying and people streaming through the house to split the spoils.
Over time these people have created their stories to tell. The woe that they feel when they look at the objects that once belonged to my Gran. I don't have any of her belongings but I do have the memories, good and bad, of the last days we spent together. Something far more precious than any lie I could create to soothe my conscience.
In the evenings we would talk. My Gran believed there was a God, a Heaven and a Hell. So I questioned her about all of this. I wanted to know what meant what. I wanted to understand what was happening. Why was she in such pain? Had she done something wrong? Couldn't this God make her better? She answered all of my questions and I ruminated before telling her that I really didn't like her God much.
With her passing I felt true injustice. The woman who had once fed me, taught me manners and shared her talent as a pianist with me was gone. Nothing was going to change that. When people said she had gone to a better place it felt more like a knife than a comfort. I knew it was a lie. These people were absent during her sickness. Too weak to face reality or grant a dying woman time in their presence. They wanted what once was and concluded with what they would like to believe. They weren't there when it counted. Preferring to behave like rats fleeing a sinking ship.
I don't remember the last thing my Gran said to me before she died but I do remember her bed laying empty, my Grandfather crying and people streaming through the house to split the spoils.
Over time these people have created their stories to tell. The woe that they feel when they look at the objects that once belonged to my Gran. I don't have any of her belongings but I do have the memories, good and bad, of the last days we spent together. Something far more precious than any lie I could create to soothe my conscience.
