Kingdom of the Dead

In the last week, I've been faced with a lot of death. My father's health has been rapidly worsening. A friend experienced a horrible death in her family. Another friend of a friend died by suicide. And it all felt pretty normal.

I feel like people my age see death as occasional tragedy -- a strange anomaly that shouldn't happen if the world around them is functioning properly. One of the healthiest things I think I ever saw was when travelling somewhere in Southeast Asia, and I saw families burning their dead by the river in the centre of town. There were kids running around, a monkey threw something vile at me. Life was just happening all around us as these folks went through the ritual of saying goodbye to the dead.

My instinct when people die is to respect their passing, and to take care of the living. And by take care, I don't mean emotionally. People tell me I'm a good emotional support, but in these periods of crisis I feel more inclined to help out with the minutiae of it all. Do you know how to plan the funeral? Do you need somebody to look after your dog? Can we bring you food?

One thing I've learned from being around people who experience severe illness is that I don't really ask permission anymore. I just start doing it, and I let them know they can tell me to stop if it's too much. Here are your options. What would you like to choose? Otherwise I'll make a choice for you. And that seems to go okay. Because when I've been my worst, I don't want to make decisions; I don't trust myself to make decisions; and, I don't have the energy to make decisions.

And it all just feels good. It is sad that people have left us. And it doesn't feel good that there have been tragedies. What does feel good is that there have been opportunities for us to just be human and help each other, or just be around.

I think we're too tentative about helping people these days, and while part of it is because we don't want to overstep, I think most of it is because it makes it easier for us to withdraw from our own discomfort of being faced with death.

I was at a memorial for somebody who passed the other night. It was quite a large gathering on a city street. As everybody was leaving, I noticed that right next to us were two shopkeepers of a very upmarket candle store. They'd been standing outside, keeping a respectful distance.

I thought, wouldn't it be nice to have candlelight right now? And I had a lot of internal resistance -- not fear, just resistance to talking to them and pulling them in. But I went to speak with them anyways, and they were very happy to help.

They gave us a nice pillar candle and a large glass shelter for it to protect the flame from the wind. We lit the candle. And then something wonderful happened.

Suddenly, people were bringing lit tea lights and placing them next to the candle. I don't know where they were getting these from, as it happened almost instantly. It was such a lovely surprise.

As I was walking home, I thought: We saw these candles lit in the daylight, but what a feeling it will be for folks tonight when they walk by at two or three in the morning and these candles are still burning. All that wonder produced through the effort of just a few minutes of connecting with strangers over someone's tragic death.

This kind of stuff helps me feel life everything is right with the world.

There is a new baby in the family. And whenever I see my dad, who certainly looks like he is on his last legs, I can't help but see images of the new baby in my mind. It's a feeling of continuity that brings a lot of comfort. The energy of a newborn, who maybe has their whole life ahead of them.

I have an internet friend who mentioned recently that I talk about death a lot. Maybe? My feeling is that we don't talk about it enough. It shouldn't be something that we gear up to talk about. It should flow through our relations, like food and money and work and love. It should just be there, all the time.

Because, as they say, none of us are getting out of here alive. And we shouldn't need to wait for some philosopher or scientist or priest to prompt us to consider it. It should be something we feel familiar with at every moment of our lives. That's how I feel.

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