The Grim Goings-on

In the past week or so, I’ve seen a couple of movies dealing with the death of someone beloved, and the effects their death has on the living. I didn’t think much about it at first, until last night while dreaming, and this morning, while listening to Linkin Park’s Leave out all the Rest. But first: a small and interesting sidetrack:

In most cases, the fictional media tries to portray heaven and purgatory as a better world, one where you truly can be happy, right? The most pertinent, yet mostly ignored, question I think you can ask, is: why don’t we all, then, commit suicide en masse? We must die one day, and if we’re only gonna end up in a better world, why not today? Are we afraid there’s no afterlife – in which case, we’re only fooling ourselves by watching such movies? But why are they making those kinds of movies, then? And so on. Wow, what a chicken-or -egg kind of argument…

Back to last night. Instead of dozing off to the familiar cloud cuckoo land, I dreamed one of my friends died, and what effects this had on me. I’ve always been lucky in the sense that no one in my direct circle of friends and family has kicked the bucket yet. I’ve never had to go through the 5 steps of grief for this, and, even though I’ve gotten some outstandingly bad news in my day, can’t really wrap my mind around the finality of someone’s death. But last night, my mind tried to.

As much as I’d like to, I can’t describe my feelings in under the proper amount of words, but it was pretty bad. As you can guess: at first, a sensation of sadness, followed by thorough contemplation. Then, unnecessarily guiltiness, trying to preserve as many memories of that person as possible, chiding others for not ‘caring’ as much as I did, and feeling heartbroken for those who suffered more than me, etc. Are these the immense feelings of hurt you feel after someone passes away? I hope not, and, moreover, I sincerely hope that I won’t have to experience them for many, many years to come.

Luckily though, right then my alarm went off and minimized versions of those feelings took over.

(Please forgive me if this post seemed ‘incomplete’, but it was just too hard for me to go to relive that dream in full. I’ve even been contemplating whether I should put this up all day. Oh well.)