- but, Christ, I've Had Enough.

Mainly, of Death.

Let me start with a fair warning: you may or may not agree with what you read, and that's okay. This book isn't intended for you to agree, it's intended to portray things from the other side of the event, and to inspire personal consideration from the aforementioned other side. It will have controversial opinions, but I will deliver them as respectfully as possible. These opinions are not all my own, and I will specify when they are, with a "views held by author" stamp or something. Think of these chapters as the equivalent of a shadow speaking to you. Most of them are just the result of me thinking about the flip side of the situation in the effort to better understand myself, something I wanted to share with all of you.

TW: Death, brief mention of suicide. Please skip this chapter if these subjects make you uncomfortable.

Great, now that the pleasantries are out of the way, I have only one point to make in this first chapter:

There's nobody that has a greater ego than a living person when a loved one dies.

Allow me to explain.

Within the realm of the living, the concept of death is often considered a heartbreaking event. We lose everything to the cold hand of time eventually. Family, friends, pets, belongings. At some point they all leave, called to join the realm of the unknown.

We all know this, yeah. It's common knowledge that nothing lasts forever, true.

But the pain is still there when we lose them.

Having been to several funerals, and having seen several dead people, and having watched how several people took the news of death I couldn't help but notice how selfish it all is.

Now, don't get me wrong. To lose a loved one is devastating. Anyone that has knows how it feels like every bit of love you have for that person has been ripped out of your chest with their passing. This is completely understandable.

But often, the living make too much of a death about them.

Humans and animals alike have taken to ritualistic behaviors when a well loved and respected one of our own is no longer with us. In the case of humans, These rituals are often separated only by religious belief, but the gist of it is still the same: "[insert name of higher power], please grant access to paradise for this person who we, in particular, love dearly. They're swell, we swear it - would we ever lie to you? Of course not. Here, look, even one of your chosen ones is asking on our behalf." Cue reaching over and patting of pastor / pastoral equivalent in other religions on the back.

Following that, it becomes about their tears. About their pain. About their loss. (All proven by the influx of people that will, in fact say, "I'm sorry for your loss / My condolences."

My questions are as follows:

What have you lost, exactly? With relation to people, you never truly own them. They aren't possessions for you to lay claim on.

With relation to feeling, you never stop. Memories? Yours forever.

So what exactly have you lost?

For the person in the ground, at least, we can clearly see what they're now deprived of.

After the ceremony in which they bang down their God's metaphorical door and demand access for that one guy, or girl, or non-binary, then comes the "gone too soon" messages plastered on all social media platforms and the "how am I supposed to live" mentality.

In quite a few cases, the dead individual only ends up being thought of in relation to the human ego and wants.

"Gone too soon"? For who? How do you know? What if you knew that starting the next week they were to face unspeakable pain for the rest of their lives? Would it be too soon then? What if they had full intentions of taking their own life (in cases where they didn't)? What if they were just ready (in cases where they did)?

These questions aren't meant to be read harshly, so don't take them as jabs at your pain, or attacks. They are genuine inquiries meant for you to further understand how you mourn, and why, by focusing on the "harsher" truth of what these occurrences can be.

When you say "gone too soon", are you thinking of the individual that's gone? Or of yourself, who would have preferred that they left on your clock and not their own?

In certain cases, humans will become lost in their grief. A shell of themselves that is severed from the vibrancy of life that they knew and tied to that person. In that way, i suppose people are like moths, and suffering is the flame. I could never quite fathom why you would attach such important concepts to things that could be taken in a heartbeat. It's like playing Russian roulette with your sanity.

That, too, is selfish.

I mean, sure, it's morbidly beautiful that you held so much love for a person that in their absence you feel impossibly empty, but that's just it.

You held onto the love. And so, with their passing, they took what you proclaimed all their lives was rightfully theirs.

Think of it like having a box in one hand. You fill the box with emotion and bits and pieces of yourself and you transfer ownership to the person. You promise and reassure them the box is theirs, you let them touch the box — hell, you might even let them look inside, and yet you never actually put the box in their hands.

You get used to it's weight. To the bend in your arm, the feel of it settled into your palm.

So of course, when the person takes their box from you, which you are powerless to hold onto, by the way — it isn't yours — your arm will either flop back to your side, or stay frozen in that position it's known for so long. In either case, you find yourself feeling unsettlingly light. Light, and alone.

And that, is where the true devastation will often times lie.

For those of you that will read and relate to anything I've said, don't think that the selfishness is necessarily a bad thing. Though I'll cover this in another chapter, know that you can't do anything in this life without being selfish.

Perhaps, though, this perspective helps you to see where we as humans can falter, thereby creating pain for ourselves in the (unavoidable) end.