Random Experiences - 2022

Death - 22.03.22

I'm going to be attending Queenie's mum's burial in a few days. I sense this bringing another turning point, another curve, on this road.

If there's going to be a lying in state, I'm damn going to look into the face of the woman who, a few weeks ago, spoke to me over the phone with her soft and recovering voice.

Alive one day, dead the next.

I'm going to stare reality in the face and hold its gaze till one of us revs up the courage to slap the other hard on the cheeks and offer the warm sting of a forced reconciliatory hug the next minute.

"From earth, we come. To earth, we return." That's how the saying goes. But where do we go when we die?

Of what use is the question even, when we know and are certain of this, that so far as we got to taste the sweetness or rancidity of the air through our nostrils, we are going to someday be food for worms?

Why do we struggle to grasp at abstract meanings in the face of reality? Why do we fear the stark outlines of what's real, and then try to blur the lines by excavating for falsities? Why even bother asking these questions in the first place?

Death is a reality. The question is how deep is this engraved in my being?

This is the answer I'm going to find out in the next few days.

And whatever I find, I hope I keep.