Reflections on Death, God, and Sunshine

A friend of mine, a software engineer, faced the death of two loved ones in a single month. It was a rough time. She told me this:

"I'd like to file a bug report. In fact, I'd like to switch to a competitor's universe."

That reminds me of one of my favorite Terry Pratchett quotes, in which he says that the presumed extant Supreme Being seems to be lacking a moral compass.

I once asked a Sufi teacher "Does God exist?" His reply: "yes, but bear in mind that he loves mosquitoes just as much as he loves you."

And lastly, this from my dental hygienist: "Life's not fair. But the sun's come out."

"Sorry" doesn't change it

I've been using email longer than almost anyone I know, thanks to an early career on the net. There are some email subject lines that I've come to view with a certain amount of gravity.

The first is a person's name. It almost always means they're dead.

The second is "Sorry." This isn't always a suicide note, but recently that's just what it was.

There's something especially agonizing about losing someone to suicide. The pain ripples out in circles around the person to family, friends, communities. It affects far more people than they could possibly have guessed.

Every time I'm touched by a suicide, I want to reach out to all the people in my circles, just in case they might be thinking that way. I want to say this:

Friend, I don't dispute your right to check out early. Your body and consciousness belongs to you as much as anything can. I know life can be some hard shit, and yes, there are times to consider bailing.

But I want you to know something first.

People will suffer. You killing yourself causes deep emotional pain in more people than you realize. Even if you're considerate and avoid leaving blood on the walls, even with your thoughtful final instructions and that nice note about how it's not our fault -- even then, my friend, suicide is a violent, shocking, and brutal act.

We take the loss of you hard. Far more of us will be affected than you suspect. We'll be angry. We'll be hurt. Some will hurt a lot. Some our whole lives.

Given that you're considering throwing it all out anyway, I'm asking you to consider some other answers first. You think you've tried it all, but a sudden exit is evidence you haven't. Instead, throw out your career, your city, your clothes, your assumptions. Shake it up. Why not?

Listen, I've been where you're standing. I'm don't claim to know your pain, but I've stood at the edge of the cliff and looked over. I found other ways.

So I ask you to look for other ways. Find someone who understands. Ask for help. Take new risks. Seek out cohorts. Even meds. Why not? You've given up all other approaches anyway, right?

It's your choice, of course. But if you decide to take your life, be very clear that you're also taking parts of other people's lives with you. Being sorry doesn't change that.

Words to a Grieving Widow

There are no good words. None at all. So we hugged.

"I'm sorry," I whispered in her ear. "So sorry."

"I know," she replied softly, not letting me go.

"I know you know," I said back quietly. "But I have to say something."

"I know," she said, still hugging me.

It was a bit funny and a lot heartrending. Nearly twenty years we'd been friends,  she and her recently departed -- lost? died? exited stage left? -- husband.

Who was irreverent and affectionate. He used to call me "darlin'". He was a damned good writer and one of the few I've known who I wanted to write with.

In fact, mere months ago we started riffing on a story we wanted to write together, about a PI who was following this guy who kept flubbing ornate assassinations. The story was about how, after a while, the PI became fascinated by and sympathetic to the guy he was following, and as he started to understand his motivations, began to even help him -- help him fail, that is. It was a good premise, funny, and just the sort of thing that Mark could make come alive.

It was a good time. A good memory.

So what do you say to a grieving widow? What words can do any good in the face of a pain so great it is neither bearable nor escapable? There aren't any. Not a one.

But you have to say them anyway.

I'm sorry.

So sorry.

Days Like Years

Each day, minute and minute, sipping slow to make it last. Days like years, minutes like hours; we sit outside together in bits of sun and breeze, sipping. His eyes close just a bit, soaking up, soaking in, every inch of him solar-powered.  His lanky, emaciated form stretches out across cement with startling ease. Finest-kind feline. He looks at me, cat-content, as if to say, "you know, this is not so bad."

"Every world spins in pain"

Today I'm watching my cat die from kidney disease. He's hurting and nauseated. Hiding it admirably well, even by feline standards.

I'm reminded of a quote from Terry Pratchett:

"I have told this to few people, gentlemen, and I suspect never will again, but one day when I was a young boy on holiday in Uberwald I was walking along the bank of a stream when I saw a mother otter with her cubs. A very endearing sight, I'm sure you will agree, and even as I watched, the mother otter dived into the water and came up with a plump salmon, which she subdued and dragged on to a half-submerged log.

"As she ate it, while of course it was still alive, the body split and I remember to this day the sweet pinkness of its roes as they spilled out, much to the delight of the baby otters who scrambled over themselves to feed on the delicacy. One of nature's wonders, gentlemen: mother and children dining upon mother and children.

"And that's when I first learned about evil. It is built into the very nature of the universe. Every world spins in pain. If there is any kind of supreme being, I told myself, it is up to all of us to become his moral superior."

Goodbye, Dear Sir

Today a man I admire, respect and care for lies in the hospital dying.

I never heard him complain over the years. Not once. I was always impressed with that. Not when they took out his spinal fluid to irradiate it and put it back, not during chemo, surgery, and not when his heart stopped working, not when his brain stumbled. Each time he'd just - come back, step by step, as if it were something anyone could do. He'd shrug as he described his trials, as if the surgery or chemo were a small thing.  An inconvenience. A minor detour.

He was easy to admire, and it was easy to think he'd keeping beating Death.

This time, it seems not.

Across the years, when I'd see him, he would hug me with a sort of fierceness and a smile, as if to say, "Yes, yes, I am a scientist, but also I believe in you."

The tears of grief are for we who remain in life, not for them, the dead. Where do the dead go, that I can wish this man well?  That I can send something, some final appreciation, some bit of love?

Goodnight to you, dear sir. I hope there is something on the other side, something good and wonderful, because imaging you gone forever is almost more than I can bear.

Enter Stage Left, Exit Stage Right

About six years ago I lost someone. It wasn't death that took her, but misunderstanding and fear. I did everything I could to keep her, but I failed. So I cried, I lamented, I agonized. I railed at God. I went on.

That's how it goes: we lose love, someone dies, is destroyed, leaves. We object, agonize, lament, rail at God. Then - somehow - we go on. Sometimes the pain is so wretched, so unbearable, that it seems nearly certain we'll die from it. But mostly we don't. We keep breathing. We keep walking.

Recently I lost someone again. This one is more fresh, so of course it feels more poignant, as such things do. The loss is just as hard, just as wretched, and seems just as permanent.

But you know, nothing is all that permanent. It comes on stage left, exits stage right. Indeed it was this particular friend in whose company I came to a better understanding of this lack of permanence, of stage left and stage right. Nothing was the same for me after that.

Loss of a person has the feel of a freshly dug, freshly inhabited, freshly filled grave. You look at the dirt, you think about your love, and you marvel at - and abhor - the moments between the life and death of that love.

Now it's spring and renewal (and resurrection?) is in the air, so I'll tell you the good news: about four months ago, the first friend contacted me again, and we are gently, kindly, sweetly, talking again. Somehow the dead have risen. To my eyes, it is a miracle.

Enter stage left.

This Too Shall Pass

I have grown attached to this place. I ache at this leaving. I love waking to see the trees out the great expanse of my windows.  I even like being woken up in the middle of the night by the full moon in my face.

Yes, there's the road noise, which I thought would bother me more, but I learned to tune that out while still being in love with the green outside.

But it's not mine. I leave because it's not mine. Even if I owned the house, it wouldn't really truly be mine, it would just be - less someone else's. Maybe I wouldn't have to move if it were mine, but I would also have to take on all the responsibilities of ownership, costly responsibilities that I know too well, that I can't now afford. If I owned it. Which I don't.

It's so easy for me to think of the place I live as somehow defining me.  But we own so little, really.  Not even our bodies, which maybe we have on indeterminate lease, but surely don't own.  And if we don't own those, we sure don't own our houses, no matter what the laws like to say.

And so I pack the last of the boxes in full view of the cats who watch  curiously, ignorant of how this will soon ruin their world, their ownership. I can remember them howling in the car during the last move and for hours during the move before that, furious feline outrage at this intolerable upset.

I understand. I want to howl, too.

Cherry Blossom Fall

It's the time of year to write about the blossoms, how full and lush, and lovely their fall. How they remind us of the changing of the seasons, of the delicate beauty that is spring.

This morning someone stole my bike. Just - took it.

Last time I moved residences, the car was hit and run the week before. This time it's the bike.

Just - gone.

Yes, it's damned unfair. Yes, I called the cops. No, they haven't found it yet.

And it's the weather for riding, too. Beautiful, lovely.

Cherry blossoms fall. No bike. Damn.