Death I

Tags: essay

TW: Death

Before continuing to read my blog, please consider donating to my friend’s friend’s funeral expenses along with donations to the Kids Help Phone (scroll to the bottom page of https://bowensnewgame.com/). I didn’t know them, but it is clear that they were loved and deserved more. Please remember that you are loved and seek help before you make an irreversible choice.

Take a minute before going through the blog and tell someone that you appreciate and love them. Come back in a few and read the rest.

“I know we’re still here, who knows for how long, ablaze with our care, its ongoing song”

     Maggie Nelson, The Argonauts

Scrolling through instagram, my suspicions are confirmed: death is near. Maybe not mine and maybe not yours, but surely someone you know or someone you know who knows someone. It doesn’t matter, but the rate at which death visits will accelerate (especially due to our horrible administration and just general depravity of the world). As we grow older, death rears its ugly head around every corner. We meet more people, who will die one day. We spend more time with the people we care about, who will die one day. We go online and see mass amounts of people, who will all die one day. By knowing more people, we increase our chances of knowing someone who has passed. How beautiful and sad: to learn to love and to return it back.

I recently went camping with my family for the first time and I brought my polaroid. I wanted to take photos because I knew one day I might not remember how my mother looked. During our last camp dinner and without any prompt, my mom asked me to take a photo of them so that the family could have something when she leaves; it amazes me how much my parents can predict my thoughts when I’ve been so absent from their lives. My mother isn’t dying in any significant way or at least I think (who’s to know when we hide so much from each other). I snapped a poorly developed photo, but at least I have something to hang beside my Mount Eerie poster.

Last year, my favorite aunt/“grandma”/mother-by-function passed away. I didn’t talk about it and I barely reacted when my family called me. “Oh that’s sucks. When did it happen?” After the call ended, I cried into my pillow, trying to flash through different memories of the years we lived together. My memory could only form vague statements and colors, but I could still feel the giggles sneaking through my teeth when I would purposely piss her off. How I would lie and say her grandson broke his leg on the trampoline or that her phone was completely broken and had to be replaced (it was on airplane mode). Those memories felt insignificant and miniscule when all I could picture was her dying face days before the call. She didn’t look well when I last spoke to her and she didn’t look well in the casket either. She would been more beautiful if FaceTime didn’t flatten her down pixel thin. I should have been there, but I had work the next day.

I try to drive back home more often. My parents ask me why the side of my car is scratched and why there is a flimsy piece of black tape holding the bumper from falling off. I just said I was being careless, which was true. Around this time was a little after more relatives passed (including my aunt) and when I would wake up and doomscroll through the Gaza Strip bombings. A little scratch on my car didn’t mean anything; that could be fixed. There are larger pressing issues. The “accident” wasn’t anything special: I just didn’t know how to get out of our poorly laid out parking lot. I honestly don’t remember much around this time, but I did call my father when his mother died. It was a painful conversation and we didn’t say much like usual. Except, he didn’t mention anything about car maintenance.

Driving always brings thoughts about getting into a tragic accident. Planes are no better either. I’m afraid of dying but no where is safe. When I enter a space, I map potential escape routes or worry that my family will find out I’m queer when they see the latest list of gay nightclub shooting victims. I know I can die at any moment and I also know that is true for everyone else. I worry about when my parents will go. Which friend will be first to step through. Sometimes I hope I get lucky and I get to go first (though I’m sure you would hate that).

Death is something we must forget but hold deeply in our hearts. I cannot live in constant fear of death, but I can’t pretend that it won’t ever happen. I must spend time now to love and cherish. I want to remember the people who have profoundly shaped me. I want to love more people so that their death will impact me. I want to live a life where I can see people’s souls. I want to intertwine our souls together and weave a quilt, so that when we return to dust, our warmth persists.

Please visit https://bowensnewgame.com/ and donate. If it’s not active, let me know and we can always reactivate or please donate to Kids Help Phone.

Thank you for reading. Go tell someone you love them.