this crazy flower is randomly growing in the middle of the yard across the street. i saw it yesterday while i was doing laundry. it's the yard of an apartment building, but somehow this flower found its way there. i remember a flower like this sprung up mysteriously in our yard when i was in grade school. i looked in astonishment at it, and made my mom take a picture of it. "it looks like a spaceship!" i marvelled...
i watched the series finale of six feet under last night. i really enjoyed it. i've been thinking a lot about death lately. about how we as a culture (to put it loosely) deal with death. i've just been so struck with how everpresent death is, and yet how scared we all are about it. we see images of death and brutality every day, and we've become desensitised to it, and yet we don't really prepare for it or we think somehow we can protect ourselves from it. we live in constant fear of coming down with a terminal illness, and yet think that somehow, if we live right, we can prevent it from happening. death is the one thing we will all, eventually, have in common, and yet, we live each day trying to prevent it from happening to us.
i tried talking to a friend of mine about this and felt like i just went on and on (this will not surprise anyone reading this who is actually my friend, i'm sure) and didn't really know what i was saying at the end. i remembered the buffy episode where her mom dies. it was similar to the six feet under in a very important respect. these shows, which are centered around death, which have as their main plot lines the death of others, don't actually incorporate many of the details of death, usually. even six feet under, where the deaths are the business (so we see preparations of the body and funerals, and the grieving of others), keeps us far enough away from it to really feel the ache of loss. that's why i think it was important for the show that someone important to us (after having watched 5 seasons) dies. so we can see how the combination of things really works: the realization that despite the overpowering loss you feel with the new vacancy (the questions of where the person is, are they happy, how will you live without them?), you have to do the practical things still, like arrange for the body to be picked up, clean up messes they left, plan a funeral, go to the grocery store, get over it, learn to live again without them there.
when buffy's mom dies, she keeps trying to find supernatural causes for the death, which to me strikes me as a way to move death from reality to nightmare. since she is so accustomed to dealing with the supernatural as her calling/job, she feels compelled to move her mom's death into this place. if she successfully does this, she will be able to see it as a problem to be solved rationally, rather than experiencing it as the unbearable loss and vulnerability it threatens to be. in six feet under, when david has to deal with the death of someone close to him, he too shuts out the emotions at first, and spends all his time and energy on the practical aspects-- planning the service, cleaning the body-- before cracking, becoming inconsolable and completely unable to deal. he almost moves from reality into nightmare as well.
to me, death seems like the most unbearable thing you can share with another person. when people close to me have died, i have been so confused, feeling my emotions, reaching out to them, seeing them in my dreams, unable to let go. it wasn't until i lost someone as an adult that i really found (out of necessity more than anything else, really) my faith. so in that sense, the unbearable pain was necessary to push me to find out what i really beleived. what DID happen to these people? why DO i feel like they are still here? who really IS it that comes to visit me in my sleep? what will happen to me when i die? will i ever see these people again?
my mom once told me about a man she knew who had experienced so much loss. hearing his story, my mom was overwhelmed, not just with disbelief or sadness for him, but with how happy he seemed to be. she asked him about it. he said "all that i have lost has enabled me to identify with and provide comfort to others, and for that i am grateful." sadness is selfish, and trying to prevent the inevitable is a Sisyphean task. death is all around us, and it's not something to be taken lightly, but it happens everyday. like everything, there are good and bad parts. the important thing to realize is that while we are still here, we have to keep going. and that's a blessing. [in this incarnation] we are only born once, and we only die once. what happens in between is up to us.
before i saw the series finale, i listened to this story on npr about the romanian film newly released on dvd: the death of mr. lazarescu. the commentator raises interesting questions and i think i'd like to see the film.
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