My forgotten old friend called Death.
“People know death, they must know somebody has died, but they don’t believe it will happen to them until it come.”. — Tuesday With Morrie
“ I think I might have cancer, I’m sick quite often lately.” I said to him.
“You’re joking. You’re fine. It’s because you are too tired, and lacking of sleep.”
“Well.. Sooner or later, I’m gonna die anyway.”
Lately, I have been thinking about death quite a lot. It started when I notice some of my friends already loss their parents. Cancer, heart-attack, stroke, etc…the list goes on. People start to bring up “the good lifestyle” and blaming on all those junk food, radiation, poor water quality, climate change, and God-most of the time. As if we live long enough, we will never get to face to face with death, we will cheat death.
I was looking at my parent in one Sunday morning. Wrinkles and white hair, they are no longer young. And, one question pop-up in my head, “How much time do we have?” Say that I’m perfectly healthy and staying away from danger, If I refer to 65, then I only have about 50 years to live, and probably I will only have 10–20 years more to be with my parents. I have to face it. Along the time, my parents will passed away, and if I live long enough, say 100 years, aging will catch up with me and left nothing to be done.
In 2012, two days before my grandma passed away, it was my turn to take care of her. Around mid-night, she groan in pain, tried hardly to sleep but pain always successfully take over her consciousness. And, there was nothing I can do, she already drank too much pills. All I can do was staying on her side and rub her hands, put pillows on her back to ease her back pain. And she said, “I think I just want to die. I’m old and I have nothing left to do. Now, it’s just all pain.”.
My other grandma die in the same year, she died in dementia and partly schizophrenia. She often pointing out at somewhere and shout out about someone who already died years ago. She traveled in time-In her mind. Welcoming a guest who came to her memory years ago. She was about 85 years old when she died. Almost nobody can understand her when she talked, she talked randomly, murmuring something, until at some point, she stopped talking.
Once I took my grandma to psychologist, so that someone can talk to her. “Mbah, I have a really nice friend, and she said, she wanted to meet you.” I said. The psychologist is middle-aged woman, a professor in my previous university. In the session, I found out that my grandma kept her sadness and anger towards some people, people who hurt her so much when she is alive. She often cried and somehow, smile happily when she talked about her core family before she was married to my grandpa. The psychologist said my grandma had huge resentment and unsolved regret in her life, and she can pinpoint who did that to her, subconsciously. Maybe the old saying is right,
“We might forget what happen, but we will never forget how it make us feel.”
I don’t know which one is more horrifying, death or aging. Rolf Dobelli, in his book, writing about “The Good Death Fallacy”. A short article about which life has better end, and which one is seen more attractive. It’s either you die at your happiest moment but shorter life time, or have moderate life but longer life time. Study shows that people will appreciate the prior than the later. Actually, we often neglect the duration and stuck in peak-end rule, we always want the “Happy-ending” story, don’t we?. We appreciate more if we die in happiness, rather than having a longer boring life. But, what if you can have a long well-lived life, and few years of going back and forth to hospital with great pain before you finally die? Will we pay the price, or we prefer to be in “27 club”? As Rolf Dobelli asked his book reader, “will you prefer the fast-food burger?”
Oh anyway, my first grandma died in diabetes and complication, but I guess, I always think, she die caused of sadness. She just wanted to be with my grandpa who died six months earlier. And my second grandma? She died in her sleep. In one fine morning, she was watching TV as usual, and she fell asleep. That’s it. She sleep for good-I guess. No happy ending?
There will be no happy ending in life, if you think death is not part of the happy story.
Much worse than Death.
Wise man says that there is much more things worse than death. And for some people, Death could be the way out of great suffering. One day, I asked myself, what is it that I’m afraid the most out of death? is the pain before I die? is it the thought about desires and aspiration hasn’t been fulfilled? is it regrets of the evil things I have done? As I don’t believe in hell-and-heaven anymore, I don’t count ‘getting into hell’ is one of the reason I’m afraid of death.
So, what is it? What do you afraid the most out of death?
Is it the feeling of losing touch in the world?
Is it the fear of being forgotten? Remember the Bing Bong in Inside-out movie?
Is it the fear that nobody will take care our love one?
Last year, I joined a session with Jessie Cole in Ubud Writer and Reader Festival, an author of a lot of fictions book. But her session where I attend was talking about her family, her real story about her family, her very first reason why she ended up with writing. So what’s with Jessie and Death?
Another question, which one is more frightening, the death of yourself or your loved one?
In Jessie case: A death can tear up one happy family.
Jessie step sister dies in suicide. Leaving a note to her father,
“If you can listen to me, listen to me, Dad.”
Jessie father is a psychiatrist, he used to dwell with people drown in grief and sadness. But he can’t save himself from the drowning feeling, death shook his life apart. Years after the death of Jessie sister, her father changed his personality dramatically, turning from a loving father to man with angst and regret. He tried so many times to find the reasons why her daughter suicide while all he knew she was a happy women in travel. He was lost in confusion and disbelief. Jessie not only losing her sister, but a loving father, and a warm happy family which only last in her memory. At the end of the day, her father killed himself in a car with exhaust gas. Everything that happen in her family left a huge trauma within her, and as the world seems like left nothing to offer, Jessie hide herself from the world in the middle of the forest. She hide herself until she find a way to speak to the world through her writing.
It’s a true story. It can happen to anyone. Life is harder after death pay a visit. or probably, they work together to create suffering. I come to a conclusion:
“Death is far cruel to those who left alive.”
At some point, we have to dwell with grief. People will die. Nowadays, people at my age is getting married. Some of my friends already losing their parents, and looking on my own parents, I often asked, “When will be my turn? Will I be ready? Am I doing good enough?”. Then, thou I rarely at home, I try, really try to have good experience with them, really in the moments. I will forget all the details, but I hope, feelings will stay remain. Everything will become a distant memory. A lot of questions coming to my head whenever I think about death. My own death and my insecurities of being left alone.
Then, what should we do? Keeping all memories in a place where nothing can be erased? Cloud, Instagram? or maybe the black mirror technology will catch up and we, eventually, can transfer our consciousness to computer chip or something else?
Is it really what we want? Keeping the memory? Maybe we have a better chance of having good life if we start to study about the experience self and the remembered self. Keeping the memory is non-sense. Buddha is right, “Be in the presence.”
Maybe if we are so afraid of death, we have to start to think if we live forever. Yuval Harari said if scientist have found ways to reverse aging, then there will be amortal people. People who can’t die of sickness, but still can die in accident. Everything will change, the happily ever after will be actually for good as there will be no ‘till death do us apart’, and so does …..how we value things. Remember the basic rule of economics? Scarcity. It creates value. If time is no longer scarce, what we value today will change, and maybe… I just think…It will be harder for us to be happy and grateful.
Life asked Death “Why do people love me and hate you?”
“Because life you are the beautiful lie, and I’m the painful truth.” — Anonymous
—
In one fine morning, I run my finger through his nose line, swapping my thumb on his cheek. He open his eyes, said the usual good morning, and kiss my lips. I look at his brown eyes while feeling all the warm from his skin under my palms. One day, there will be one day, when we will look at each other eyes for the last time, and there will be only cold skin. “I want to die first, and you can date other girl if I die first. That’s the deal.” I said.
