And he comes knocking...

It seems that a lot of friends lately are dealing with relatives who are very sick or ill... some even close to death. Memories of two years ago still are very much with me, when I lost both my grandmothers and a close uncle in the span of three months. My life is of course changed because of it, though I am cursed / blessed with the luxury of being geographically removed from most of my extended family, and consequently, I don't have to readily deal everyday with the reality of their passing.

To distill a person's life down to its simplest pieces, a person's life is merely a mass of human relationships that are formed by either blood or the daily routines of work, leisure, etc. When a person dies, it creates a vacuum, a void in the lives of everybody who knew them and had regular contact with them. People are fond of the known and the expected... like the bartender who knows every patron by the stool they take and the drink they drink, there's a noticeable absence when somebody close to you dies and departs from your mortal life.

They're no longer there to laugh with you or nag you, to ask you how you're doing or comment about some trivial issue...there's a nothing-ness, an emptiness in their wake.

To be empty hurts. We react to the void by seeking a substitute... we unconsciously seek to balance our losses with a new gain. Someone who loses a friend may seek out a new one. Or if someone who loses a father, they may seek out a mentor. Or if someone loses a Miss Right, they may seek out Miss Right Now. Or if someone loses a dream, they may seek an escape. And on and on and on... an endless series of scenarios whose circumstances spur action.

Replacing is the human way of coping.

All that we know is that everyone dies. No one who embraces life chooses the time, or place, or manner... it simply happens. We mourn or we smile, we're changed for the better or we're scarred and left broken. Yet somehow, it marches on, life or something like living.

On and on and on and on. The wheel turns, the pieces shuffle, and someday... you and I will pass into eternity too. Whether we want to or not.
posted by G at 5:25 PM   |

in?scrip?tion (n-skrip-shun)n.
1. The act or an instance of inscribing.
2. Something, such as the wording on a coin, medal, monument, or seal, that is inscribed.
3. A short, signed message in a book or on a photograph given as a gift.
4. The usually informal dedication of an artistic work.
5. Jeremiah 31:33