When I think of death
I live my daily life blissfully unaware of a great many things. It comes from a brain that gets easily bored with daily life. I'm slow to respond to emails, text messages, DM's, etc. because deep down I'm still a little catholic boy who craves that fear of looming bad news. I'm often silent while driving with company because my mind is busy imagining alternate realities where I grew up in a rural farm town, or maybe where I decided to really see where being a musician would take me, or even where I'd stayed a reporter and not gone off to graduate school.
What I rarely, if ever think about is my own mortality, which is odd considering I'm close to 40 and have seen numerous friends and family pass on. I rarely, if ever think about the physical aspect - the sensation of your last breath when you're absolutely sure it's your time. I rarely, if ever think about what emotions you feel as
your heart beats
slower and
slower
and
slower
until it stops.
But sometimes I do and
when I think of death, I think about it metaphorically. I try to conjure up a different image of him - not the macabre, hooded, scythe wielding skeletal-demon that we see on Halloween. I picture a man who looks like my grandfather; a strapping, thin frame that betrays a strength that comes with a lifetime of manual labor. A handsome man with salt-and-pepper hair underneath his white cowboy hat, pressed gray slacks and a guyabera. He has the same caramel-bronze skin as my grandfather, the same moustache, only
softer eyes somehow.
When I think of death
I picture myself that same little boy, nervously waiting as my cousins before me line up to greet my grandpa, only this time it's not him and the line is full of faceless strangers waiting their turn to talk to him. As the line grows shorter I grow more anxious because
when I think of death
I don't think about an afterlife. I don't think about heaven, hell or judgement. I don't think about the slow decomposition of my buried body or how it could break down into ash during cremation. No, I'm fidgeting in line because
when I think of death
I wonder how I'll respond. I step forward and imagine another reality where death knocks on my front door. How will you answer? Do you ask who it is? Do you hide and stay quiet? Try to peek through the blinds? Do you yell through the door, refusing to let him in? Or maybe you partially open it, blocking it just enough as you figure out your next step. Or maybe, just maybe, you welcome him in, leading him into your living room to chat before you both head out the door one last time.
I step forward to the front of the line now and look up at him while thinking about all of those things, because
when I think of death
I think about how I'll respond and, most importantly, what that says about the real, not alternate, me.
Post script: this is not a "cry for help" or reflective of any deep seeded depression or whatever. Sometimes people can be happy and contemplative. Both things can be true.