Ask anyone who has known me from childhood, and they will tell you that I have always been quite morbid. My fascination with death and dying started at a young age when a neighbor boy killed an alley cat out back from our house in Brooklyn. When the older kids in the neighborhood found that cat they all turned away in disgust whilst I stared in amazement. To many I'm sure, I seem to be a troubled person; one who must have endured something tragic in their childhood.... quite honestly I had a fantastic childhood. My parents were the BEST!
I suppose my fascination with death and dying is spawned from my need to know things; to have a solidified answer to the unknown. In college I took a class called On Death and Dying. It was singlehandedly one of the best classes I have ever taken. We discussed death and dying on so many different levels. From the nature of the actual event to the spiritual side of things. Other students in the class ranged from those who needed the course for their majors, to those who worked or wanted to work in a field related to the topic. ( The student I got along with the most was of course the daughter of a funeral director. She was taking the course in preparation of one day taking over the family business.) I guess the course interested me the most because it not only dealt with ordinary thoughts on death like grief and ideas of an afterlife but the cold reality that is death. What happens to families after a loved one passes? What is done to the actual physical body? etc etc. I know to some those details seem gruesome and gory but thats life people, in all its glory.
From this class I grasped a meaning for death and that is LIFE. Without having lived your death is meaningless. What I mean by that is: By taking any kind of journey through your life be it small or large, you have crossed paths with others. While you walk down your path your presence touches those around you; for better or worse YOU have meaning. When that journey ends in its physical form your being still lives on in the people with whom you touched. Your death has meaning because you lived. In order to cherish what we have and learn from those around us death needs to be a factor in the equation that is life. Without death your life would have no worth, no value, it would be trivial. It would not be treasured. In the same respect, without life your death would have no meaning. There is light in the dark and dark in the light. Our lives and our deaths are an array of emotions, events, and necessities. Without all the "in between" from start to finish life and death would be inconsequential.
Maybe its a higher power or maybe its just the natural order of things but it feels like a hand at times carries us, holds us, and even buries us. All things come to an end but like the shading techniques of the great artists of the world, our lives are various shades that go from light to dark- dark to light. The good and the bad. Life and Death. Without one we can not have the other. The "chiaroscuro" effect helps to balance things and provide transition for us from birth to death. In the end our grasp of our own mortality is what makes us human.
** I know this entry was a bit jumbled - its been awhile and I started this blog entry in February 2011 and am now just finishing it!
From this class I grasped a meaning for death and that is LIFE. Without having lived your death is meaningless. What I mean by that is: By taking any kind of journey through your life be it small or large, you have crossed paths with others. While you walk down your path your presence touches those around you; for better or worse YOU have meaning. When that journey ends in its physical form your being still lives on in the people with whom you touched. Your death has meaning because you lived. In order to cherish what we have and learn from those around us death needs to be a factor in the equation that is life. Without death your life would have no worth, no value, it would be trivial. It would not be treasured. In the same respect, without life your death would have no meaning. There is light in the dark and dark in the light. Our lives and our deaths are an array of emotions, events, and necessities. Without all the "in between" from start to finish life and death would be inconsequential.
Maybe its a higher power or maybe its just the natural order of things but it feels like a hand at times carries us, holds us, and even buries us. All things come to an end but like the shading techniques of the great artists of the world, our lives are various shades that go from light to dark- dark to light. The good and the bad. Life and Death. Without one we can not have the other. The "chiaroscuro" effect helps to balance things and provide transition for us from birth to death. In the end our grasp of our own mortality is what makes us human.
** I know this entry was a bit jumbled - its been awhile and I started this blog entry in February 2011 and am now just finishing it!
