The so on part

[avevale_intelligencer]

There's a very beautiful and moving poem that I re-encountered the other day, which ends: "Do not stand at my grave and cry. I am not there. I did not die."

While I understand the sentiment, I think this expresses a...well, not a problem as such, more a sort of...peculiarity in the way we think about death. I've seen it many times in the way characters in stories assure their loved ones that "as long as you carry me in your heart, I'll still be here."

Now I would be the last person to rule out the idea that we survive in some form after death. I have no reason to disbelieve that, and while I've had no direct evidence myself, I believe it's possible that other people have. I would very much like to believe that my mother and father are still in existence in some form and in some world, and I would like to hope that they are happy there.

But they are not here.

I can carry them in my heart for the rest of my life, but that's about the same as having a photograph of them. They don't talk to me, however much I may wish they would. They can't tell me things I didn't already know, the way they used to. Fictional characters talk to me (in my head, I mean), real dead people don't. Maybe they do for other people. I don't know. But either way, to say that they did not die is just not true, unless you redefine dying to mean something other than "the extinction of life in the body."

I've mentioned before those lines from The Dark Crystal that I like so much:

JEN: The Master sent me.
AUGHRA: Where is he? Is he here??
JEN: He's dead.
AUGHRA: Ah, Could be anywhere, then.

I like them, but I can't completely believe in them. Maybe our loved ones are in the wind and the rain and the sun and the trees and so on, but if they are it doesn't make the wind warmer or the rain less wet or anything. They're still lost, and if they've just gone into the next room they aren't going to be coming back any time soon.

Believing in life after death is one thing. Pretending that death hasn't happened is another. It may make some people feel better, in which case I hope to gods they aren't reading this, but it's only ever made me feel worse, because I can't feel them near me or hear their voices or touch their hands or even see them. And as my memories of them get sketchier and less complete with every year that passes (they all do, except, of course, for the eternal collection of song lyrics and stupid commercial jingles) I wonder if it's me, if this is another sense which in my case I have not got.

I don't know. It just seems peculiar to me.

Comments

Funeral Blues - W H Auden

[lexin.livejournal.com]

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.

Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.

He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Re: Funeral Blues - W H Auden

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

Well, you know, one *can* go to the other extreme... =;o}

[howeird]

Having lost both my parents last year, I share your feelings. I will always remember them, they are in my mind and my heart, and I have thousands of photos and some videos, and I can even imagine what kind of advice they might give to me. But they are not here anymore, I can't phone them up and ask how their day went, and Dad won't have some new stock for me to buy and Mom won't be passing along any new recipes.

[catsittingstill.livejournal.com]

Dead is gone. Never see again gone. Never hold again gone. I hope I said "I love you" enough because I sure can't do it now gone.

It's not you. I can't perceive the dead either, and their memories fade for me too.

I don't mind the idea of dying someday myself, any more than, when I was four, I minded the idea of sleeping sometime. Just not yet; I know I'll miss something good if I go to bed now.

But I hate like hell that the people I love have to die.

[mdlbear]

This. All of it.

[dickgloucester.livejournal.com]

Oh yes.

I was just thinking "Dead is gone," when I scrolled down to your comment.

I think ideas of an afterlife, or returning to the stars or whatever are wonderful, and may be comforting, but even if that is what happens, there is an impenetrable barrier between the living and the dead. For the living, they are gone. What is left of them does fade, sadly. It's the way things work.

I miss my grandmother and my aunt, particularly. I can't see them or talk to them ever again.

However, what I can do is make the effort to act in such a way as I believe would make them proud, were they here. Wherever they are or are not, they don't give two hoots now, but I do. I think that's what we carry with us.

[thnidu.livejournal.com]

Then I shall skip it.

[janewilliams20.livejournal.com]

I totally get your point. Death happens. Once someone's dead, you can't communicate with them they way you could when they were alive, there's a serious physical difference. We learnt the definition of "life" in school ("MRSGREN" - movement, respiration, etc.) and that is no longer what they are. So, quite apart from that poem, lovely though it is, posters that say "Jesus lives" make me think the people who put it up are idiots, unless they can tell me his postcode and what he had for breakfast.

But, as a point of information, there are people who can communicate with the dead. My younger sister tends to consult our (dead) grandmother for help with dressmaking issues. I've passed on messages from dead people to live people myself, and the recipient understood it where I certainly didn't. It's a rare talent, it's not all that reliable, but it does happen. And no, in my experience it is not even close to the same as the person you're communicating with being alive.

[zanda-myrande.livejournal.com]

Thank you for this.

[pbristow.livejournal.com]

"We learnt the definition of "life" in school "

Correction: You learned *a* definition of life. By the looks of it, the medical one. There are plenty of others to be had. =:o}
('Life' is one of those pesky *short* words, that get used so commonly that they pick up extra meanings like fluff everywhere they go. Words like "like" , and "love", and "home", and "work", and "so", and "on", and... )