When I opened this post on Friday, February 27th, I didn't know what kind of day it would turn out to be. I wasn't aware that, on a day now marked in infamy, a man infinitely important in my life would pass away. If I did, I don't know if I would've even gotten out of bed.
It is often, in the face of a loss of human life, that those left behind think not of the passed, but of the effect the passing will have on themselves. Some might say that this is a selfish, and self-centered behavior, while others may argue that it is simply the human mind dealing with a stark reminder of its mortality. I must both concede with and stand against these claims, because while they are unarguably accurate, they are also something else: ignorant of the human thinking the thoughts. We think of the effect of a death on ourselves because that is all that we know to compare it to. In the face of inevitable death and the grand finality of existence, what else can we do but introspectively evaluate our lives? I have had the horrendous fortune of realizing this through repeating the funeral-going process, and while I would trade this wisdom or knowledge or whatever you may call it for never needing to go to a funeral, all I have is the tidbit: instead of entirely focusing on the fact of death, think towards the personal impact that the deceased had upon your life, and what it is about them that will make you remember them. Death is a bastard, but a fair and honest one, so it's up to us to cheat him. Don't you dare forget the people who you've lost in your life, the funeral's you've attended, the empty chairs or silent rooms left behind, because the moment you let go of those memories, is the moment you let that bastard win.
That is why I won't spend much time wandering the dizzying thoughts of mortality and death, nor thinking about some selfish thing. No, I'll simply spend my time thinking over the memories that I have of Mr. Tom Oakes, and all the things he taught me, intentionally or otherwise. He was a good and honest man, and though I knew him in so brief a span of time, the things he taught me will last me a lifetime, and maybe more, when I pass down his teachings. I know no one really speaks ill of the dead, but I find myself lacking an ill thing to say. I search my memories for something (not as though I would want to speak ill of him), but I can honestly say that there is nothing I can remember nor conjure of Mr. Oakes that would besmirch his memory.
Think toward the important people in your life, the ones who have taught you, improved you, or pushed you to be better, and be more aware of them, more grateful of them. And every single day, thank whatever God you believe in (if you're an atheist, thank statistical probability, random assortment, the Big Bang, and evolution) that those people are in your life, because it would be lessened without them.
DFTBA
It is often, in the face of a loss of human life, that those left behind think not of the passed, but of the effect the passing will have on themselves. Some might say that this is a selfish, and self-centered behavior, while others may argue that it is simply the human mind dealing with a stark reminder of its mortality. I must both concede with and stand against these claims, because while they are unarguably accurate, they are also something else: ignorant of the human thinking the thoughts. We think of the effect of a death on ourselves because that is all that we know to compare it to. In the face of inevitable death and the grand finality of existence, what else can we do but introspectively evaluate our lives? I have had the horrendous fortune of realizing this through repeating the funeral-going process, and while I would trade this wisdom or knowledge or whatever you may call it for never needing to go to a funeral, all I have is the tidbit: instead of entirely focusing on the fact of death, think towards the personal impact that the deceased had upon your life, and what it is about them that will make you remember them. Death is a bastard, but a fair and honest one, so it's up to us to cheat him. Don't you dare forget the people who you've lost in your life, the funeral's you've attended, the empty chairs or silent rooms left behind, because the moment you let go of those memories, is the moment you let that bastard win.
That is why I won't spend much time wandering the dizzying thoughts of mortality and death, nor thinking about some selfish thing. No, I'll simply spend my time thinking over the memories that I have of Mr. Tom Oakes, and all the things he taught me, intentionally or otherwise. He was a good and honest man, and though I knew him in so brief a span of time, the things he taught me will last me a lifetime, and maybe more, when I pass down his teachings. I know no one really speaks ill of the dead, but I find myself lacking an ill thing to say. I search my memories for something (not as though I would want to speak ill of him), but I can honestly say that there is nothing I can remember nor conjure of Mr. Oakes that would besmirch his memory.
Think toward the important people in your life, the ones who have taught you, improved you, or pushed you to be better, and be more aware of them, more grateful of them. And every single day, thank whatever God you believe in (if you're an atheist, thank statistical probability, random assortment, the Big Bang, and evolution) that those people are in your life, because it would be lessened without them.
DFTBA
