Things Left Undone

Facing death is one of the elemental human fears. There are those that have gone silently, without a good bye. Others have seen their soul slowly exit their bodies. The bravest have died for a cause that they believe in. It seems that the word death is a dirty word. For me, the word brings back painful memories. I think of loved ones that have gone to the other side. I think of all the horrors that have been committed in history. I have always imagined what it feels like to part with someone you love, or to join them in the next life. It is a fragile thing, and sometimes, we leave things unsaid and regret it forever. 

My fascination with death is not a random thing. Like many in this life, things were left unsaid. In this case it was my grandfather, who I never knew. Our lives overlapped, just long enough for him to live during the first three years of my life. I had heard about him, but he was always an enigma to me. At nights when I couldn't sleep, I would ponder his life; where he lived, what he was like, those kinds of things. 

Out of all the days of my life none is more vivid than when he passed away. He had died alone, in an old apartment in Seattle, probably still clinging to the fragments of happiness he had felt. It was morning and my mother answered to a phone call. In just a few sentences, she was distraught. That was the mark of death; the anxiety, the mystery. It was all compressed into one moment. We traveled to Seattle to impart our last act of love. We held his funeral. Words that slip my mind were said, but I remember the atmosphere. It was bare of all but a coolness in the family and things were left undone. 

Nobody knows exactly what we encounter on the next side, but to go there with years of suppressed emotions is what would be my personal hell. I hope to someday know what he felt, and yet to experience loneliness in the last moments here on Earth would be torture. All these things taken into account, I don't fear death. It is only the beginning.