Dealing with death
Originally written .
When it comes to death, I try to live by the mantra 'Don't be sad they're gone. Be happy they no longer suffer'. This applies pretty well when it comes to suicides and long-term or very painful or arduous inflictions. That said, death still isn't easy to deal with.
In all the cases that have affected me directly, it never quite goes away, even in cases where them no longer existing may never even have actually affected you.
Several of my friends are people I can go without seeing for several years at a time. But once we've made an encounter at whatever place, we're up to speed and back to chatting like we've seen each other every day for the past several years in a matter of minutes. I could never meet these people again, and I'd still consider them close friends. And yet, their deaths do affect me. The mere knowledge that I will never again encounter them randomly sometime; that I will never be able to give them a ring or send them a quick message and ask about something I know they can get back to me on, even if I will never actually end up doing that, is the kind of thing that burdens the spirit and never quite goes away.
Same thing goes for family members. It's one thing if they're on a really long holiday. They're not around in just the same way as if they genuinely have passed away, but suddenly it's no longer possible to catch up with them. Even in the old days you could still send letters and get to chat in some capacity at-least. Suddenly it becomes quite literally impossible to even just exchange pleasantries, even if you never really wanted to do that. The opportunity becomes lost forever.
There were two cats in the family when I was a kid. Both were older than me, and came into our life because my father's sister moved to a place which didn't allow pets, so my grandparents took them in. One of those two cats is probably wholly responsible for me liking cats. That cat didn't give a shit about anything, and yet he absorbed pets like it was his bloody job. I don't think I've cried as much as when he passed away. Even if I weren't as emotionally dead inside, I don't know of many things that could cause that much emotional pain. The mere knowledge that I would never be able to see him again, never pet him again, took a long time to recover from, even if it probably didn't look like that from the outside. And it's not as if you ever really do recover. I still miss him, and yet time moves along. You too move along, but the scars, even if not obviously visible, remain, until you too perish.
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