Yeah, I have this sort of love/hate relationship with DEATH. Okay. Maybe there's not much love there. I mean, why would there be? After all, DEATH is going to come and at some point take me away from everything I love, make me stop what I'm doing, remove choice. What's to like about that? I suppose if I knew that there wasn't just zip waiting for me I might not mind so much but without knowing all I have is the fear that when it's over, it's over. No more hanging out with the people I love. No more writing, reading, walking with my dog, dreaming, evolving. Just nothing. And I have to tell you it scares the shite out of me. Puts me into a panic if I think too much about it, keeps me awake at night. Because I am no where near done.
Sometimes though, I imagine DEATH ala Terry Pratchett: "An obvious sort of fellow: tall, thin (skeletal, as a matter of fact), and ALWAYS SPEAKS IN CAPITAL LETTERS. Generally shows up when you're dead, or just when he thinks you ought to be. Not a bad chap when you get to know him (and sooner or later, everyone gets to know him)."
* Because it feels like DEATH has always been with me, ever since I discovered his existence, just hanging around, always a few steps away, waiting. And I wonder, what might I say to convince him to leave me alone? And what might happen if he did?
* From Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.
And what is death like? Is it a door or a blank wall? An end or a beginning?
ReplyDeleteIs it nothingness, a world without end? Or is it going to work, walking the dog, and brushing my teeth.
Maybe this is death and I don't know it.
Now the humorous side of this topic is making me LMAO.
Humor is welcome! I mean, if we're going to talk about so dreary a subject as death, we really should have some humor else we'll all just go kill ourselves. Right?
DeleteI'm not afraid of death since I do believe in heaven and that I will be with my grandson and brother again. But I do fear the act of dying. It can't be fun, can it?
ReplyDeleteI hope you find the answer to death you are looking for.
Thank you Belle for stopping by. You are very fortunate in your belief of Heaven. I envy you!
DeleteI love Terry Pratchett's death!
ReplyDeleteNot quite as keen on the real world version!
Agreed!
DeleteWhat if we are in fact already dead and this life we imagine is really just a dream in someone elses head.
ReplyDeleteI don't think I'm somebody else's dream, but only because I'm very aware of my own dreaming state and real life isn't anywhere near as much fun/scary/crazy as dreaming.
DeleteThen again, how can we be sure what is reality and what isn't?
I love representations of death in fiction. David Eddings wrote it as a wall of darkness. Supernatural (the t.v. show) has him as a person. Ingmar Bergman (the picture you used in this post) also personified him as a person (great pic by the way). In the philosophy of what is and is not reality, a Cal Tech physicist has said that it is possible that the entire universe could be the hologram at the edge of an event horizon of a black hole. It's very interesting.
ReplyDeleteIt is interesting - and scary as hell!
DeleteI remember when I first felt Death nearby. I was in my twenties, and was working at my first job. I got a call at work that my aunt, who worked in the kitchen at a prison, was stabbed to death by an inmate. Before that, in my world, Death only came to the elderly or infirm. That was when I first realized--really realized--that he hovered everywhere.
ReplyDeleteSeveral years later, on my birthday, I was working at another job, and got another call at work. I thought it was mother calling to wish me a happy birthday. She was calling to tell me that her brother had walked into a diner and shot a woman to death.
That was when I realized that Dealth did not always come for us cloaked in a dark robe. Sometimes we recognize him in the face of those we know. And sometimes we see him in the mirror.
Death passes close to us on his journeys. Sometimes we glimpse him; sometimes he catches us unaware.
I have to go with what Dante wrote about Hell, that it was a frozen wasteland where all emotions went to die. That is pretty much my version of Hell also though I believe this Earth is the hell we are trying to work outselves out of.
ReplyDelete