Why are we so tolerant of death in some instances - flowers and leaves, the occasional goldfish - but so intolerant of it when it comes to ourselves? We are constantly surrounded by conditions that remind us that everything that comes into being will also cease to be. We finish books. We eat a delicious piece of pie. Sure, we can have another piece, but eventually the pie will be gone. Our moods come and go. It rains and then it is sunny. Sounds - whether the annoying roar of the neighbor's lawnmower (didn't he just mow his lawn two days ago?) or the melodic call of a songbird - arise and fade away. We have a precious possession, and then it is broken or stolen or worn out or willingly passed on.
But my life? That is mine! Sure, I know that I was not always here. There was, I am told, a pre-Gina world into which I arrived, and logic and nature tell me that there will also be a post-Gina world from which I will have departed.
Maybe our clinging and refusal to accept this absolute truth has something to do with size. When a plant dies, I may be sad. A tree, though? That's way more tragic. A car hits a squirrel. Yuck. A car hits a deer. What kind of heartless asshole would hit a deer?!
Or maybe it's about time. The longer something - or someone - has been on my path, the more likely I am to forget that it is not an essential and permanent fixture on that path.
Anyway, I'm sure that none of this is news to any of you. Nor is it news to me. Perhaps that's why I find it so confounding.
When I was a kid (my whole life until I was about 23) I used to believe that I was about to possibly die, any day, any moment. That made life precious and death so common that it wasn't scary at all. I appreciated each additional day that I was given as a special gift... until I came to understand that in fact I wasn't necessarily going to die so soon. That's when I started being afraid of death.
ReplyDeleteListening to my neighbor's lawn mover, reading your post, and thinking, "Mmm, pie ..."
ReplyDeleteBeautifully written, Gina. Thanks for sharing your wondrous thoughts.
ReplyDelete