Truth Hurts
When you reach the end
I hope you had more good times than bad,
laughed more than you cried, and
loved more than you hated
I hope regrets were few,
achievements many,
and that your wealth
could be measured in smiles
I hope you enjoyed your stay,
were buoyed by happiness,
oxygenated by love,
and were at peace when you left
Because this is all there is
Not a single mourner in the mist
No priest to say “And now we pray”
Just a casket
a freshly dug hole
two gravediggers and a crow
Cold enough to see your breath
But warm enough to dodge the mausoleum
No one in attendance
No one to toss that first handful of dirt
signifying the end of earthly ties to the living
I imagine a nattily attired corpse
still able to hear
Weeping at the silence
Embarrassed and dismayed at the poor showing
The muffled mummers
of the two unknown grave diggers
the very last voices he hears
a faint and fading
“Rest in Peace, Bro” followed by
“Do you want to grab a coffee at Dunkin?”
As a smile comes over his face
“I’m tired.”
That was the note he left. A sticky note, actually. Pushed hard and pressed purposefully onto the upper-left corner of the corkboard in his home office, now spattered with brain matter and blood.
He woke that Tuesday, poured his coffee, sat on his back porch, and listened to mourning doves coo and the distant rumble of the early commute – trucks and cars, potholes and puddles. The wet hum and rattle of life.
He would miss his morning coffee, but not enough to stick around.
His kids were grown. As best he could, he’d advised them about life and how to get on in the world. So, in this regard, his “main” job was done.
He wasn’t all that unhappy or in any kind of pain, just immensely bored and intensely uninterested in the grind and pursuit, of what, he never entirely understood.
For the last several weeks, he found himself muttering, “What’s the point? Nothing changes. It’s all the same shit.”
What’s the point?
Nothing changes.
It’s all the same shit.
I suppose if one chews on those sentiments long enough, a sticky note on a corkboard and a gun in your mouth is where you end up.
He was missed dearly by his family, who stumbled numbly through life for the next two years.
For weeks after his demise, his faithful dog waited for him to come down the stairs and give a loving pat on the head. Whenever the house creaked, or the upstairs plumbing clanged, his dog would get up, walk to the stairs, and wait.
That was perhaps the saddest display of love and loyalty ever.
If we’re lucky, our postmortem shelf-life lasts about 2 generations. After that, the story of us fades from existence entirely. When the collective memory others have of us disappears, we move from mostly dead to truly dead.
We might live a few extra minutes a year in the side glances of strangers who pass by our gravestones (on their way to visit a soon-to-be-permanently-forgotten loved one).
A clever quip on a headstone, and the laughter it generates, can raise us from the dead for a few moments. But honestly, that seems like a desperate attempt by the departed to prolong their existence.
YouTube is a heaven on Earth. A digital preservation of the self that survives after we pass. I believe our subconscious desire for everlasting life is at the core of YouTube’s popularity. We’re the modern-day version of the sculptor in Percy Shelley’s Ozymandias, posting digital carvings of ourselves in a futile attempt to stem the tide of our own transience.
As the final memory of us fades to black, we transition from the warmth of humanity to the cold breathless inanimate. In the end, our blood, bone, and guts give way to the flat and dimensionless world of dusty photos, handwritten notes, password-protected social media sites, and, possibly, a couple of YouTube or Tik Tok videos.
Such is our fate.
The thought of man’s impermanence was so bothersome, we invented the concept of an afterlife as as counterbalance. Entire religions have baked the notion of everlasting life into their concocted fairy tales. Most of us were probably raised in a religion that fostered such beliefs.
All of us were probably told by our parents that grandma and grandpa were in heaven, and one day “you’ll see them again!” I’m not sure our parents actually believed this. It’s more likely they were simply repeating what their parents told them, or perhaps they thought this lie would somehow protect us or make us less fearful. Maybe they were just too damn lazy to level with us. Probably a combination of all of these.
I think this world would be a better place if we were just honest with ourselves about our impermanence, and more importantly, honest with our kids about it, from early-on.
Embracing the truth that life is temporary, would make us value and appreciate it more.
Instead of telling our kids that by obeying a set of rules, they’ll get to live forever, we should teach them to live a life that leaves this world in better shape than they found it — so their children and everyone else who comes after them have an opportunity to live comfortably, without undue suffering.
Instead of lying to our kids about heaven, preach to them about human rights and the importance of equity and for preserving our planet.
A philosophy that embraces our temporary nature and stresses a responsibility to preserve the planet for future generations would go a long way towards improving the here-and-now.
All this nonsense about an afterlife has had a negative effect on our culture and our planet. It’s a good example of how well-intentioned dishonesty can be just as destructive as malevolent dishonesty.
Embrace your temporariness.
All of us are about 2.5 generations away from true non-existence.
As the final memory of us fades to black and we transition from the warmth of humanity to the cold breathless inanimate, our existence gets relegated to the flat and dimensionless world of dusty photos, handwritten notes, and password-protected social media pages. Such is our fate.
We will not be reunited with loved ones on puffy white clouds — that’s a Peter Pan-level fantasy, and the sooner we let it go, the truer to ourselves we can be.
We are all short-timers, so lets seize that realization and use it as fuel for making a positive impact in the NOW — for caring and making the world a better place TODAY, so those who come after us, can have a happy and peaceful existence. Is there a more noble endeavor?
bendingtheneedle