Death

Death is not something I have thought about with any kind of gravity. With any kind of reality. It's always been a "and now you're not there any more" kind of state. It's almost as if death was an adult version of peek-a-boo. One minute you're there, the next you're not.

I've thought about my own death. Sometimes when I was really sad, or angry, I would think about death. About going away. But it was never about what would happen to me. It's what would happen to everyone else. My death would mean that now that bitch in English would think twice about how she teased me after asking her out that one time. It would mean that my parents would finally appreciate how much they truly loved and needed me, and damn them for making me mow the lawn. Or maybe it'd be about how all my work and troubles would disappear. Or about how my life would be resolved in one tidy little plot of grass. But that's all it ever was. A fantasy of escape from the things going on around me.

Later, as I grew to understand the world around me a little better, and perhaps even myself, it became an existential dillemma. Why are we here? What does it even matter? Where do we go when we die? What was the whole point anyways? For awhile, I wanted to die simply because these questions were just to much for me, and death seemed like a nice way to solve the dilemma: either I would die and I would know, or I would die and there wouldn't be an afterlife, and the question, and it's answer, wouldn't happen any ways. I'll be honest, it was always more about laziness when it came right down to it. Or perhaps a sense of universal justice that was being violated: life wasn't JUST working out for me the way I wanted, and rather than fight for the things I wanted or cared about, I wanted some kind of universal karma to repay me. I was a good person, I am nice and kind to people, I'm helpful, I volunteer for the homeless. One would think that that would translate to a stress free life with money and a hot girlfriend. But none of it ever came.

I'm not sure when it happened, perhaps it was karma working slowly, or maybe my own mindset correcting itself, but I finally got the stress free life, the dream job, and the hot girlfriend. None of it fell into my lap. I learned to live happier with what I had, I learned to work hard to get that job, I learned to get out and meet people. But it never felt like I had to really change myself to get there, it just progressed naturally, which is why it sometimes felt like luck. Almost undeserved good fortune.

Life was perfect, as far as I was concerned. Enough good things were going on that I never had to worry about WHY we lived. It didn't matter. All the goodness of life had me too pre-occupied.

I had met her in my first year of college. It was Valentine's Day, and I had gone to the convenience store to pick up some beer; me and some friends had decided to stage an anti-Valentine's Day party by watching manly movies and drinking and getting high. She apparently was picking up wine for the same reason. It seems a little ironic that we clicked so well while purchasing items for a uniquely unromantic night. We stood in the checkout line for an hour just talking and laughing, letting people go ahead of us. We both ditched our parties and ended up sitting out in the parking lot all night long drinking wine and beer (both of our friends weren't very happy that we never came back).

She was my first real girlfriend, and I realized quickly she was the one for me. But a year later, in our Sophomore year, I took her back to that parking lot, for our anniversary. There was a tree on the far end of the parking lot, I fashioned a blanket across some branches and setup a whole picnic up there. We spent the whole night talking, listening to music, and watching the stars. And that's when I proposed. Everyone thought I was insane: only ever had one real girlfriend, barely 19 yet, not even done school yet. One friend even locked himself in my dorm room to try and stop me . But I didn't care, I knew what I felt was something that would last forever. She must have felt the same way, because she said yes.

We agreed that we wouldn't have anywhere near enough money until after we graduated, but we didn't care. Neither of us wanted a big wedding any ways. If it had been up to us, we'd just fly to Tibet and get married in the mountains, with our parents and a few close friends.

School went by quickly, and we each managed to land our dream jobs, and even better, in the same city. We moved in together, and started planning out our life together. How long it would take to afford a nice car and a house, a wedding, visit all the places we wanted to see on our bucket lists, have kids. Our whole future was tangled together and stretched on forever.

And then four years after I had first met her. Valentine's Day. I had arranged for us to go back to our old college. We flew in the night before, and I had left her in bed while I made preparations for the day. I had planned a romantic dinner nearby, and then bought all the makings for a moonlit picnic in that old tree again. At around four in the afternoon I got a call from the police. They said I needed to go down to the station.

I don't remember how the rest of that day went. Or that week. It was just a blur. A complete haze. The only vivid thing I can remember was being in the county morgue as they pulled the white cloth back, and there she was, and yet she wasn't. Just her shell was left. I don't know where she had went. But this thing here, this cold piece of fat and meat lying on this metal table, so beautiful and yet so... lifeless. This couldn't be her. She had to be somewhere else. She couldn't just be... gone.

There was a funeral for someone. They lowered something in the ground. But it wasn't her.

Suddenly my future was shattered. Something that had once stretched out farther than I cared to even imagine now ended at the second in front of my nose. Everything was a black void past that. A black void I had no intention of even trying to think about.

I slipped into a depression for months. I never called my work to let them know, but the cheques kept coming in. Someone kept bringing food for me in little Tupperware containers. But I didn't know what to do. I had no reason to go on anymore.

I started drinking. Heavily. Days would pass and I wouldn't even feel the time go by. I would wake up from my drunken haze surrounded by bottles of Jack Daniels and Smirnoff, only to get up, go to the store, buy another armful, and sit heavily back down on the couch and resume. I would leave the TV running, but only to blare voices into my brain to quiet the ones inside screaming at me. It didn't really work. Between breaths of the actors, the voices in my head would make clear their intentions. After one of my blackouts, I woke up and found a shotgun sitting on my coffee table, sitting on top of a receipt with what looked like a child's attempt at my signature.

The TV was off.

I sat there, and for the first time in years, seriously thought about death again. Thought about how tumultuous my future had become. How undefined it was. I was angry. I was angry with the kind of god that would lead me to think I had such a perfect life, and then, by taking a life that wasn't even my own, destroy my entire future. I was angry at the world for having ever led to the situation where I had ever met her. I was angry at her for leaving me. Damn her for dying. But with that thought, I would fall right back into despair. I would cry. No, cry, isn't strong enough, I threw a fit. Blinded by my own tears, I destroyed the home we had made for each other. I tore down all the pictures, I threw glass bottles at anything that looked remotely fragile, cut my hands and feet on the shards of glass and china and ceramic strewn across the floor. And then I drank.

I woke up several times during my haze. I would alternate between a hospital bed, my own bed, getting drunk and destroying more of the house, and again in the hospital. I'm not sure how I got around. I'm sure there was someone watching over me, making sure I stayed alive long enough to feel the full force of this torture that I was being made to bear.

Finally I woke up at my bed and this time a nurse was there. She had cleared the alcohol from the house. She said I was on a detox program. Apparently they had given me a form to sign and I had agreed to it. With the same childish signature as the shot gun. As soon as she had checked the house for any hidden booze, she left me alone, saying she would come back the next day. As soon as she left, I felt drawn to the garage. I vaguely remembered hiding something on a rafter on my last binge, and hoped it was more Jack Daniels. I instead found the shotgun. I was now fully sober. I was done being mad. I was done being sad. All I knew was I felt as if I was standing on a precipice over my future. And maybe it all would work out. Maybe I would finally get over her, and maybe I'd even find someone else, and maybe it would be better. But what would be the point. Life isn't fair. There is no guarantee that good things will last. Of course, the same goes for the bad things, but the point is there are no guarantees. Period. What's the point with putting up with any of it. Death, it seemed, was the only guarantee. The only control I really had. I could work hard, sure, and make sure things went my way. But even then it was just a good chance. The only guarantee I had in life sat in powdered form, in the shell I was rolling between my fingertips. Death was an escape. It was the end game, and I could cheat and get there early. I loaded the shell, put the shotgun to my lips, and pulled the trigger.

Have you ever handled a shotgun? They're pretty long, and not quite so simple to try and aim at yourself. Especially when you're not too concerned of making a perfect job of it. I missed my entire head apparently. I blew out the side of my cheek, and a bit of my jaw. Nothing a bit of surgery couldn't fix, especially with a fully covered insurance policy and a patient in a coma. I came out a month later feeling completely whole, except for a faint buzzing feeling in my lower lip. They say the shell nicked the nerve in my lower jaw, it was lucky I could feel anything at all.

I'm not sure what it was about it, but blowing out my face gave me a detachment from life. Or at least a detachment from her. I stopped thinking about her as often. I stopped thinking about the future. I just thought about my job. Thought about my bills. Thought about the occasional sombre get together with friends to get caught up on recent events. Life turned into a set cycle of familiar people, places, and things. There was no thought to the future or the past. Just collect my check, spend it on the essentials, put the rest into savings, and move onto the next week.

And slowly the colour returned to things. Movies were entertaining again. Jokes were funny. Going out with friends was something to look forward too, instead of something to endure. Girls were becoming pretty again. I couldn't remember the last time I had an erection, much less had sex or even masturbated. I felt filled with life again. Again the world was covered with mysterious places to discover, people to meet. The future was a mystery, but it was turning from a descent into darkness to a beacon shining ahead. Not every single thing reminded me of her. I wasn't angry with her anymore. But the guilt never left me. The guilt that I was still here, living life, feeling and seeing and experiencing new things. And she wasn't. I kept catching myself thinking "oh she would LOVE this" before I could stop myself.

I finally started travelling again. Although in my late 20's, I started to 'sow my wild oats'. I felt pangs of guilt at first, as if I was cheating on her. But slowly those thoughts also left me. Life was an adventure.

On one trip, I had a particularly nasty fall while skiing down the Alps, and found I would sometimes have sharp pains in my stomach. I thought I had maybe collapsed a lung or broke something, but the doctor there assured me it would've been more obvious. I wasn't so sure, especially when it kept happening when I got back home. My own doctor decided a CT scan might help determine was what going on. That's when they discovered my liver had grown to twice the normal size. They told me extreme alcohol abuse for a year may have caused the cancer to form within it. Surgery was out of the question, the entire liver was affected, and it had already begun to affect other parts of my body. There were beginnings on my lungs, as well as on my intestinal tract and colon. They said I had maybe three to six months left. Maybe more if I was willing to go through chemotherapy, and potentially some experimental drugs.

My future was no longer a void, or a descent, or a beacon, or anything. My future was very real, and very well defined. It had an expiry date on it. I wouldn't even see my 29th birthday. And, for the first time, death actually scared me. For the first time, death wasn't an escape, or a diversion from life. Death was my reality. Death meant that all those things I would want to do would never get to happen. I wouldn't get to have a family, or see my grand kids. Suddenly the farthest reaches of the world could have just as well been on Pluto. Just an infinite nothingness, accentuated only by all the things that could have been. I didn't know what to think, or how to feel.

They sent me home, prescribing drugs and treatments and home-stay nurses to help me out as the cancer progressed. They guessed that after one month I would become bed-ridden, with or without drugs.

I needed to live the rest of my life in one month. They say you should live every day as if it were your last. But that really doesn't mean anything. I can tell you from experience I have done that for the past 28 years and still, with a month left to live, will not be ready by then. I feel extreme fear. Extreme regret. But worst of all, I feel helplessness. To a degree I never thought I could feel before. Having lost the one I love, I still had the power to do whatever I wanted, even if it was to destroy my life. Most of all, I had the power to end a life I no longer saw any worth in. Even at that, my lowest point, I had control.

But nothing, nothing, can describe the helplessness of knowing your life is numbered in days, and literally nothing you can do can prevent it.

You guys are nice

Haah, ‘Nice.’ What a damning word in the wrong hands, though — like a girl’s hands, you know — the moment a she says a guy’s nice, you know you’re fucked — you’re not fucked. Anyway, sorry.
~Colin Greenwood