In the Tears of My Saints

Chapter 17: Because this will Last Forever

People are afraid to die. You can see it in their eyes; every time it’s the same. I know. You can feel it in their hands as they twitch.  You can hear it in the trembling of their voices. Even brave souls cringe at the thought. I’ve heard all the words and combinations of words on the subject—everything anyone ever said to a dying man or blustered to themselves. But the promises of peace and the whispers of comfort sound empty in my ears. I’ve heard every line, every sentence, every syllable, and they all fall away when compared to the untainted dread in their quivering lips. They are afraid. Everyone is. Every time, it’s the same. I know.

But, perhaps it is not death they are afraid of.

I’ve heard it said that no matter who you surround yourself with in life, you always die alone. Nothing is easy when you are alone—completely alone. People need other people. They need to know that they’re unoriginal, need to feel that the experiences of others validate their own. If everyone dies completely alone, then there is no sharing of death, and dying just might be the loneliest thing a person will ever do.

So I have a theory. I think that people are afraid of death, not because it is death and therefore an unknown, but because of the knowledge that they will be alone in death—isolated in the experience. Every time it’s the same, but still inaccurate. I know.

I’ve also heard it said that your life in its entirety passes before your eyes as you die. I’m not sure if that part is true, but as I carefully take his hand, my eyes turn toward his just in case. No one likes to be alone, and if watching this life is the very last thing he does, I want to watch it with him. I do this every time.

Mr. Jacob E. Wincher was born March 3, 1973. He weighed seven pounds, three ounces and was nineteen inches long. He grew up in the suburbs of L.A., but moved to Painesville, Ohio at the age of thirteen when his father was transferred, along with the entire branch of his company. Like most children, Mr. Wincher experienced a great deal of discomfort with his new surroundings, and this distress was brought to fruition when, just eight months later, his mother was killed in a car accident. Mr. Wincher fell into depression and then rebellion against his father, which inevitably led to numerous run-ins with the law. In an effort to aid his disturbed child, Mr. Wincher’s father sent him back to L.A. in 1988 to live with his grandparents. Instead of helping, as was hoped, the move caused the young boy to feel unwanted and abandoned—as if the only person he had left in the world had finally given up on him. He ran away from his grandparents’ when he was just seventeen years old and started work at a small mill in a neighboring town. The work was hard, but the physical labor was rewarding in Mr.Wincher’s mind. Things began to look up.

Mr. Wincher’s first romantic encounter took place four months later. He was with Juliet for two years, a long relationship for him, and perhaps the happiest since his childhood. When she left him, he swore he would kill himself. I remember that. He didn’t. He didn’t even seriously try. Instead, he turned to illicit and dangerous drugs as a way of coping. First, there was simple alcohol, then anti-depressants, then marijuana, then MDMA, then cocaine, until finally he ended up in Oregon with his drug of choice: methamphetamine.

That was it. High became his life, his world, and there was nothing he wouldn’t do to achieve this goal. He drifted back and forth across the country for years. I’m not really certain how many times I saw him, but I specifically remember a fight down in Mississippi where two of his closest friends were killed. I remember the incident because Mr. Wincher didn’t even acknowledge their loss. I wonder if a person like him can every truly be a friend.

No one who knew him will be at his funeral. It will be a state-run affair, I assume. They will simply dispense of him, throw him away like trash. Some will be disgusted; others will be sorry. Some will scorn, while others will pray that his fate—this fate—will not be their own. But in the end, most will give him no thought at all.