Death … this great known unknown … is immeasurable in its infiniteness.
Unquantifiable, it is elusive in its unpredictability.
The only thing we can be certain of is of death itself.
It is an experience that none of us can eschew.
Try as we might, we have neither the wit nor the power to outsmart an unstoppable event which has captured both the fears and imaginations of every generation of man since time began, whenever that was.
There is nothing to fear but fear itself, and yet fear is possibly one of our greatest emotions when we have to face death.
The individual fears of all the many unknowns converge to form this swell of panic-fuelled trepidation and nervous anxiety which overwhelm every microdot of our being.
Fears borne out of ignorance.
We stare at a clock … not knowing when.
We ask endless questions … not understanding how.
We pray to our preferred higher being … not having an explanation as to why.
And then what?
What happens then, is the human equivalent of wave overtopping.
We are consumed, submerged, bandied about in a wave of emotional trauma, violent in its force.
It is like being locked inside a vacuum whilst having a gale trapped inside us.
No-one can prepare you for the violent pain of death.
The anguish.
The confusion.
The desperation.
That sense of being cut off from the rest of humanity whilst the world in all its ‘business as usual’ mundanity continues to turn on its axis.
There are many reasons people cannot let go of death.
For some of us, it is a rawness akin to a thousand paper cuts. Too painful to touch.
Many of us carry death and its aftermath around behind us like a ton weight anchoring us in the past.
For many it can take years to shed the several skins that death layers over our lives and selves.
For the more stoic, it can simply be a matter of getting on with things.
Not all of us are built that way, and what I have learned in the three plus years it has been since death first overcame me, is that we do not have to be.
Each to their own.
It has taken me 44 months to have the strength to look forward without having one eye constantly fixed on the past.
The time does come but only when it is right and the person ready.
My time came on 24th October, 2023, the day after my late mother’s inquest.
It is done.
It is over.
The door shut on the final chapter, the anchor lifted. I have finally found the exit door to the future.
Death is still a great unknown … and will remain so until it touches me on the shoulder.
Until then, it will have no further grip on my life.
It has lost its power over me and a power it will not regain until the day I have to submit to its inexorable will.
I have shut the door on death, but the reality is, that the door has not in fact been closed, but rather closed over and left ajar.
dervswerve 