Thursday, December 09, 2004
I Laugh At Death
Literally. I do. When I was young, the only person I knew who had died was my great grandmother who was 99 years old. I didn’t really know her and so her death did not sadden me, I did not cry and in fact, there are only two things I really remember about the whole thing. I remember the open casket and the plethora of unknown family members being introduced to me. Because my great grandmother’s funeral was my very first one, complete with the open casket, I opted to do the walk by with all the mourners because I was very curious to see what a dead person looked like. That was my only feeling. Curiosity.
I approached her casket after waiting patiently for many older people to say their good-byes and I peered in and came to a screeching halt, right there in my tracks. It wasn’t the fact that she was dead that disturbed me. What bothered me was how fake she looked with all that make-up on her face. She looked like one of those figures at the wax museum.
So, there it was...my very first encounter with death, (aside from various pets), and it did not move me at all except for the bad make up job.
This was my first hint that death does not bother me when it comes to people. Oh, it did for a time when I was even younger. I was forced to go to church every Sunday and the preacher would always talk about the 50,000 ways I could ensure my one way ticket to a fiery inferno, and I, at the tender age of 7, had pretty much accomplished about 45,000 of them. I pretty much gave up after that. What difference did it make how good I was because apparently, Jesus hates me and I’m going to rot in the bowels of hell.
Now I do get highly upset about death when it comes to pets but the reason for that is simple: Guilt. I beat myself up to a pulp wondering what I did wrong, where I could have made changes, did I feed them right, did I give them enough attention, did I ever take them for granted, did I miss some medical problem....when it comes to pets...I have a hard time letting go of the control that death has on all living creatures...as if I had the power to somehow hold it off.
Anyway, so one night, when I was around 8 years old, I was laying in bed trying to go to sleep and I started thinking of all the things the preacher said in his sermons over the years. The more I thought, the more I got upset. I was upset because when I died, that was it. The world would move on, I would be no more, and people would forget all about me. I wouldn’t even get to know what happened in the world’s future, how the story ended because I would no longer exist. I would be buried into the ground and all kinds of insects would eat away at my rotting corpse and eventually I would be nothing more than dust to be blown about on a windy day to unknown destinations.
After a few week’s of this crying myself to sleep bullshit because I had been so traumatized and confused by what the preacher was saying, something snapped. According to the words I’d heard, nothing I ever did was going to be good enough and since I was already experiencing that type of lifestyle in the world of physical beings, I started not to care. I started to accept the fact that we all die, there’s nothing we can do about it and frankly, I took comfort in the fact that I wouldn’t be alone...that it would happen to us all.
Death no longer made me sad. Death no longer upset me. Death no longer scared me. Death no longer was a big deal to me.
Unfortunately there was a side effect reaction to all of this that I didn’t know I had acquired until I was in high school. I was walking up the steps to the school and saw one of my friends standing at the top, looking unhappy. I asked her what was wrong and she told me that her aunt had just died.
I don’t know why I did this nor do I know why, to this day, I still do it....but I started laughing. I could not stop laughing. Seeing my friend upset was not funny. Knowing that her aunt had just died was not funny but there I was, laughing as if she had just told me a really funny joke.
Needless to say, she was unimpressed with my reaction and after yelling at me that it was “not funny you bitch”, she stormed off. This only made me laugh harder. And I don’t know why. I didn’t find anything in that situation in the slightest bit humorous and really wished I would stop laughing but it just kept coming. The only thing I can think of is that I no longer thought death was a big deal and that millions of people do it every year yet we, the living, go apeshit when it happens.
The older I get, the more desensitized I become to the whole death situation. I get to see it in the movies, I get to read about it in books, I get to see it on the news, I can see the print in newspapers, I hear about this person or that person’s friend/relative/associate dying and each time it has less and less affect on me.
I’ve even gotten to the point where if someone did something really fucking stupid that caused their own death, all I think is, “Idiot. Well, there’s one less dumbass on the planet. Thank G-d!” When it comes to anyone else dying, while I have managed to curb my outburst of laughter in people’s faces, (seeing as they don’t take kindly to that at all), I can only muster up a, “Gee, that’s too bad” thought and then I go on about my day.
The thing is, I don’t feel bad for the dead person. I say it’s too bad for the people who are living. I know they will miss the person and I know that some think the death was far too sudden but for the person who died, it’s over. They no longer feel or know anything.
Some out there may argue that they most certainly do feel or know things because their loved ones are now in Heaven. Fine....they’re in Heaven. Isn’t that the ultimate place to be? Isn’t that where everyone is supposed to be happy and treated well and everything is perfect? Why wouldn’t you want that for someone you loved?
When you are dead, it just doesn’t matter anymore. I do not mourn the dead. I feel bad for their family and friends but I just can’t find it in me to get upset for those who have passed on. There are times that I look forward to it, like when I’m having an especially bad year or I’m just fucking tired of everything...and there are times when I think I’d like to keep it at bay for awhile longer thank you very much but I know that when I die, I want anyone who does happen to show up for my funeral, to have a good time. Consider it my final farewell and do me the favor of getting plowed and enjoying the party.
I’m not afraid of death. I’m more afraid of pain. I hope to have a quick and painless death but I know that isn’t always possible. What I do know is that when I eventually die, all the pain is over. Therefore, I would very much like it if people would find it in themselves to have a good laugh when I die. Because it’s a part of life and the death just symbolizes that I was alive and hopefully I made a difference.
[Editor’s Note: For those who like to read way too much into my posts, looking for some hidden message....I’m not planning on offing myself. This is merely a post on what I think about death. There’s no underlying meaning in there. Read between the lines all you want...those spaces are empty.]
[update] Ilyka’s comment reminded me of something I had wanted to include here but forgot: Why is it that so many people go to funerals and point out all the fantastic and wonderful qualities of the deceased but never said those things to them, to their face, when they were alive? The time to let someone know how much you care, how much you like them, how much they may inspire you or how great they make you feel is when they are alive. We treat each other like absolute shit these days but then we all gather at funerals and say how great the person was. It’s too late then.
