When Facing the Ferryman, Bring Exact Change
Posted by Amanda on Sunday Jan 3, 2010 | Classified as: Literary Debauchery, Personal Development | Sub-Classified as: death, navel gazing
Twentysomethings are all about contemplating their navels: a whole lot of self indulgence and not a lot of substance. At twenty-three, I’ve done my fair share of navel gazing. Where am I going? What am I doing? Why is life such a complicated mess? Whine, whine. Sniffle, sniffle. My poor, misunderstood generation.
It’s all white noise.
A hospital room is a parity shift: it forces us to gaze outward and reflect. To shift our ones to zeroes. It’s uncomfortable. It’s painful. It’s the Goddess of Grief getting under our skin, blurring the lines between creative paralysis and the inevitability of numbness.
I’ve sat in more hospital chairs than I care to count. Been down this road too many times. It never gets easier, no matter how many times we’ve been there before.
I sat on her bed this afternoon and looking into those watery blue eyes. I loved her for the women she reminded me of. I knew she was leaving behind a legacy of lives that she had affected. All I need to do is look down at my engagement ring and see her face reflected in it.
Reflection. Parity as defined by quantum physics. Death as the greatest equalizer of them all.
We rarely consider death until it lands in our lap, demanding to be acknowledged, like a hungry pet before dinner time. But the pet isn’t yours. You never wanted it. You don’t want to be around it. It terrifies you. And yet, it’s here. It’s purring sweetly in your lap and you must deal with it; it may claw your eyes out while you’re sleeping if you don’t.
I’m not the only one with a bad track record when it comes to being affected by death. At eight years old, I lost my grandmother, my best friend in the whole world, to lung cancer. Mortality doesn’t cross the mind of a child. I had to acknowledge the hungry Death pet as it rubbed against my leg, eager for attention. I didn’t understand. Was Grandma simply not coming home because she didn’t love me anymore? Was she angry at me for being too loud when my brother and I were playing outside in the yard and that’s why she died?
The worst part of a child’s grieving is believing that it’s all their fault; that if they had been better children that somehow the death could have been averted. They’re told that of course it’s not your fault, my child. She’s in better place now. She wants you to live your life and move on without her. They’re given a cookie or a video game and told to go and play. Once a child acknowledges the Death pet, she can’t simply will it away. It will haunt her forever. The magic of childhood slips away and the child is left bereaved and stuck; the Goddess of Grief demands a sacrifice.
Emma has a point: no one wants to hear that it’s time to move on. It’s altruistic to think that when we face the ferryman that we want our loved ones to move on without another thought. We want to be remembered. We need it. That’s why we live our lives; it’s what gives us meaning. We want our lives to have meant something.
When I face the ferryman, I intend on bringing exact change. So place pennies on my eyes, have a big party, and bury me somewhere with a view.
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Thanks for sharing. When I was about the same age, I lost my paternal grandmother, and years later lost my paternal grandfather. My materal grandfather was already dead, but my maternal grandmother followed fairly recently. I was never especially close to them, but that’s not to say that I didn’t love them or that they were close. While they didn’t affect me badly – or perhaps I just managed to eventually move on – more recent near death experiences of loved ones have been quite traumatic for me and left me with a fascination of death and how it’s treated in our culture.
I’m one of the very few that does not believe in anything I can’t see. touch, taste, smell, or hear. Therefore, I’ve always thought funerals and remembrance was for the living. While we may want to be remembered, it’s always seemed that eventually everyone will die including all that know us and all who know them. The human species is not infinite… and I don’t believe our achievements are printed on our souls, if we have any. I think if there is such a thing, it is far too pure for which lives I saved or which charities I gave to, or which people I insulted. I don’t even think personality qualifies for that transcendental ark. So for me, it just ends. I’ve made my peace with that for the most part. Do you think it’s unfair to say that funeral rights are mostly if not entirely for the living?
*and remembrances are
yeah, i hate it when people put words in the mouth of the deceased. “they’d want you to be happy” or “they’d want me to buy this bigass new car” or “they’d want me to take the trip around the world we always talked about taking. you’ve got it right: we want to be remembered, and . . . oh, okay. i’ll climb off my soapbox before i get started (this is one thing i’m most passionate about). but i do thank you for such an eloquent, honest post. and timely, too because a friend died this very morning. how’d you know i needed this?
@Victor – There are a lot of people that believe only in the tangible. It’s a very personal decision. I’m certainly not a paragon of religious or spiritual excellence.
@Jeanne – You’re in my posse now. I make it my business to know. <3 You should add me on Facebook so we can chat.
Even miles away and otherwise unreachable, you always know what’s plaguing me…
We’re surrounded by death everyday – our entire civilization is built upon the deaths of our forebears – but we never stop to think about it until the moment we cannot look away. And then, once you’ve locked eyes with it, you can’t ever really look away again, no matter how hard you try.
Each death will affect us differently, too – the space left behind as unique as the person who once filled it… Once upon a time I prided myself on my ability to look death in the eye, but there are some people who burn so brightly that their absence is like a black hole. Something you could never see clearly no matter how hard you looked. Something cold, and dark, and inescapable.
Whether you believe in the soul, or just the body; whether your name is spoken across generations, or forgotten by even your loved ones: one day your light will go out, too. I hope my own goes out like a supernova.
“For we are only the rind and the leaf. The great death, that each of us carries inside, is the fruit. Everything enfolds it.” – Rilke
“We rarely consider death until it lands in our lap, demanding to be acknowledged, like a hungry pet before dinner time.”
< Chills. Truth.