dying

One of my pa...friends... isn't doing very well.""...Is your friend dying?""...Yes honey, he is.""That's sad.

Let__ face it, life is trivial, and my guess is that dying imparts very little wisdom on those in process.

. . . I understand that I was writing (recording) as well as seeking to right (to rectify) the wrong, and now, as I retell the tale, I realize that __ am still at the same subject_ still engaged in the same fearful and fierce activity__riting and seeking to right a mortal wrong. (86-87)

I wanted to ask my father about his regrets. I wanted to ask him what was the worst thing he'd ever done. His greatest sin. I wanted to ask him if there was any reason why the Catholic Church would consider him for sainthood. I wanted to open up his dictionary and find the definitions for faith, hope, goodness, sadness, tomato, son, mother, husband, virginity, Jesus, wood, sacrifice, pain, foot, wife, thumb, hand, bread, and sex. "Do you believe in God?" I asked my father."God has lots of potential," he said."When you pray," I asked him. "What do you pray about?""That's none of your business," he said. We laughed. We waited for hours for somebody to help us. What is an Indian? I lifted my father and carried him across every border.

I miss your face. That big bright smile. You always had it, in any weather. It's hard for me to find one these days. These cold November days. Except when I think of you.

...our loves ones truly are ever-present. We may bury their bodies or scatter their ashes, but their spirits are boundless and do not accompany them to the grave. The terms 'letting go' and 'closure' are just empty words. They mean nothing to someone who has suffered through the death of a loved one. Instead of insisting on figuratively burying our dead, why not keep them close to us? Love doesn't die when we do.

The only way past the pain is through it. Pain, grief, anger, misery...they don't go away--they just increase and compound and get worse. You have to live through them, acknowledge them. You have to give your pain its due.

Why__ you want to kill yourself? Didn__ you feel anything, or didn__ it hurt you?_ Mandy questioned, looking puzzled. __es, I suppose it did, _ it was strange, it was sharp, that__ all I can think of to describe it_ and cold, but not cold like ice, more like_ I don__ know, like something much worse, something horrible_ and it seemed like the ground was falling upwards, becoming the sky_ for a moment it made me consider that it was just a dream, that I was on some sort of drug, and then I remember being overjoyed to see the sky was still above me, then just really sad, really tired_ and then I don__ remember much else about it,_ Alecto told her, glaring straight ahead at the sky with narrowed eyes. __ don__ mind, I__ not supposed to mind, anyway. Mearth already told me that eventually I would want to be dead, that it was inevitable_ still, I sometimes wish that I could have done something good for other people in my life, it might have made up for all the bad stuff I__e done.

Death is fugitive; even when you're watching for it, the actual instant somehow slips between your fingers. You don't get that sudden drop of the head you see in movies. Instead you simply sit there, waiting for something to happen, and all at once you realize you've missed it.

You__e innocent until proven guilty,_ Mandy exclaimed, unable to hide her gleeful smile. She missed the way people used to have normal conversations, used to be more caring for each other than themselves, back in the Seventies and Eighties. These days, she realized, neighbors kept to themselves, their kids kept to themselves, nobody talked to each other anymore. They went to work, went shopping and shut themselves up at home in front of glowing computer screens and cellphones_ but maybe the nostalgic, better times in her life would stay buried, maybe the world would never be what it was. In the 21st century music was bad, movies were bad, society was failing and there were very few intelligent people left who missed the way things used to be_ maybe though, Mandy could change things. Thinking back to the old home movies in her basement, she recalled what Alecto had told her. __e wanted more than anything else in the world to be normal, but we failed._ The 1960__ and 1970__ were very strange times, but Mandy missed it all, she missed the days when Super-8 was the popular film type, when music had lyrics that made you think, when movies had powerful meanings instead of bad comedy and when people would just walk to a friend__ house for the afternoon instead of texting in bed all day. She missed soda fountains and department stores and non-biodegradable plastic grocery bags, she wished cellphones, bad pop music and LED lights didn__ exist_ she hated how everything had a diagnosis or pill now, how people who didn__ fit in with modern, lazy society were just prescribed medications without a second thought_ she hated how old, reliable cars were replaced with cheap hybrid vehicles_ she hated how everything could be done online, so that people could just ignore each other_ the world was becoming much more convenient, but at the same time, less human, and her teenage life was considered nostalgic history now.Hanging her head low, avoiding the slightly confused stare of the cab driver through the rear view mirror, she started crying uncontrollably, her tears soaking the collar of her coat as the sun blared through the windows in a warm light.

If you were me you__ do the right thing, help your friends, because you__e not a coward,_ Mandy sighed sadly. __ covered up a murder because I was scared to go to jail and I did the wrong thing_ well, now__ my chance to do the right thing, to save someone__ life, because I don__ want you to die.___ave someone__ life? I__ no one,_ Alecto laughed morbidly. __ hundred and twelve years is definitely way too long to have survived. You__ be wasting your time and risking your own life_.___his is my life,_ Mandy declared, smiling sincerely. Alecto just looked concerned and very doubtful as the rain drizzled down the roads and sidewalks, towards the harbour where it fell into the ocean, indistinguishable from all the other water in the world.

With Pollution, emotion is irrelevant, it is not their nature,_ Mearth sighed, making a face as if she were talking to an ignorant small child. __ didn__ create them, humans created the Pollution. Cheryl Nobel, Alecto Steele, Albert Sanders, Olivia Campbell, all my pretty little Representations, there aren__ many of them left these days but they__e still very dangerous! They__e here to tell society all about its mistakes! You don__ understand the world of Representations.

Sometimes we grieve the living more than the dead.

He may take long walksin the raining darkalmost aimlesslyto a spot of soaked grassin a neighbor__ open field.He__ decided this is the placefor you and him to meet again.

The problem with love is this: It dies. And when it does, you die with it.

Oh, trust me Sydney Tar Ponds, you aren__ the first Personification to be forgotten by somebody ordinary,_ Mearth sighed with a falsely-reassuring smile. Alecto stepped back from her, glaring hatefully. __ydney Tar Ponds,_ Mearth added, ____e had so many ordinary people as friends in my life that by now I__e forgotten all their names. At first it was difficult_ very sad_ to see them always leaving, dying, disappearing, ignoring, but after a while I realized that they weren__ worth the trouble. I__ rather be in the company of other Personifications. At least they aren__ always dropping dead like houseflies or sailing away to parts unknown. Nil sa saol seo ach ceo, i ni bheimid beo, ach seal beag gearr. Wouldn__ you agree?___o,_ Alecto told her. __ think you__e insane.

With time one ages, and with age one comes closer to their end. With time one builds a family, a house, a name and with age one learns to live without them.

Let us also acknowledge that the hearts which suffer the most from our wars are those of mothers. Their vital voices have been left out of the political equation for too long. An Iraqi or American mother cries the same as an Israeli or Afghan mother. The eyes of a mother who has suffered the loss of a child can destroy the soul of anyone who gazes upon them. More souls become casualties of war than physical bodies. War is a soul-shattering experience for the innocent.