The trouble is, you think you have time.
Buddha
During these weeks illness and death have touched people very dear to me and I found myself involved firsthand. Tonight then hit unexpectedly and the musings, the doubts, the thoughts of the last period hit me strongly.
What is death?
Everyone has his own personal vision, more or less dictated by customs, traditions, religions, philosophies and personal experiences. For some it is horror and terror, to other peace and for others still represents a sort of Promised Land.
No religion is right for me. I consider myself a spiritual person, but not religious at all. I don’t believe in some superior power or entity nor in any life beyond this, but I firmly believe in myself, in “my people”, in our energy and in the uniqueness and temporary nature of our lives. To me we only have this and it is better to truly and strongly live it while it last.
What is death? To me it is a part of life, just like the beginning, the growth… the closing element to which we cannot appeal. The only moment we are not allowed to straighten the tiller and therefore it is better to do it earlier and to live without losing sight of our North, not leaving issues to be clarified or things to be done, as far as possible.
I’ve never been afraid of death. I rather fear physical suffering and an unlived life. Death is to me the door to nowhere, which in some cases may be preceded by a moment of pure relief.
The problem is for those who remain. For those who love us, care for us or even know us.
Who remains has to face the emotionally intractable. A clean sharp cut followed by pain, anger, rejection and again pain. It matters little whether a death is “according to nature ” like the one of a grandfather or absurd and unfair like a kid one, when there is feeling, the steps that our brain and our senses have to face are just the same.
For those like me believing that death is simply not existing anymore, meant as nothingness, once these painful phase past or at least metabolized and managed, our mind spreads a sort of balm on our pain by realizing that although our beloved no longer physically exist, his/her reality is always there with us, in some cases even closer. The memory and affection become stainless and impenetrable and the presence is there.
Death cannot take away people we love, if we really love them. It complicates life, overwhelms and twists it and forces us to review it, but the presence of our beloved remains and is a very precious presence.
Thinking of Annalisa, the two men of my life, but also of other friends who have gone long ago without ever leaving me
