For as long as I can remember I have had a very unattached mentality towards the idea of mortality. Perhaps due to the forced acceptance of loss at an early age, I have always kept a logical and unemotional view of death – for death is just a loss of the presence of someone from our lives.
Still, to be fair, I have not had to face the actual death of many who are near and dear to me. I remember my first experience being my last foster father who shot himself when faced with having to be held accountable for his heinous acts against young girls. While I was very sad about his death, I had already detached myself from the idea of him and so it did not touch my core. However, I am certain that I saw him in my sleep on the plane as we returned home from an east coast visit at the time that would match the moment in which he took his own life.
The next death was the sudden loss of the father of my childhood best friend whose passing left us all in shock, and severely rattled the lives of his immediate family for years. I felt his disappearance from this world deeply, but perhaps my frustration at having been iced out of the mourning process with my friend and her family where I had thought I had a second home helped me to cope with the grief initially. It has only been in the past year or so that he said a final good-bye and stopped regularly visiting me in my dreams.
That same year, my maternal grandfather also left us in the physical world, but I saw him for many months in my dreams until I felt sure that he was in a better place, and that he was OK enough for us to wave good-bye to one another with a final “With my looks and your brains, we’ll go far” from him.
Next came my grandmothers and while sad, especially as I didn’t get to see them much due to choosing a life abroad, I felt OK with their passing as life had been long and full for them. I have always believed that when one dies from age, then it is acceptable so that mourning is not so much required. Still, both visited me briefly in my dreams, but I was able to say good-bye to them easily knowing they were in a good after life.
Recently, a former TIUA student (Japanese exchange student of the sister university to Willamette) passed away seemingly because of C19. I hadn’t seen him in years, but he was always a smiling guy with a warm attitude towards me and others. His wife posted on his FB account about his death and I found myself moved by the loss of his spirit in this world. I will likely not dream of him, but it does make me stop to ponder this life and those remaining in it.
The most obvious concern is for my parents. They are no longer young and though I like to think of them as active and vibrant, I am well aware that dementia is a genetic disease, and that the body wears down so that a change is required in accepting the inevitable slower phase of life they shall have to enter sooner rather than later.
My mind is already starting to prepare for the unstoppable end that will eventually come. In doing so, I have realized that my detachment towards mortality does not apply to those who are the closest to me. So, I am mulling this reality over without much joy.
Further, as I type this, I am listening to the live coverage of the potential loss of the Queen of England and it just continues to reinforce this notion of contemplating mortality.
Quite possibly because now I am older and realize that death is not necessarily a welcomed sojourn, I find the idea of losing anyone upon whom I count whether near or far, a heart-dropping and suffocating idea. I suppose it is better that I wrap my head around these things now before I have to face them in real time, but I still welcome distraction….
~T π₯πβοΈ
