Can someone talk to me about death?

Pao Fuentebella

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Lives in Manila6y

Can someone talk to me about death?

In what manner?

I’ve experienced death of family and friends while growing up. Some committed suicide, others out of natural causes. Most of them are old, few would’ve been the same age. I’ve also fantasized about disappearing.

At a young age, death taught me that life is about memories, places and experience.

When my grandparents died, they didn’t care about the big house they have, or the maids who served them, or the new technology around them. They are mostly, lonely, because they are experiencing death alone. My grandfather, in his delusional state, always asked me to take him to Tagaytay. I have no idea why. But I just looked at him, nodded and held his hand. Both my grandparents were surrounded by family most of the time. But I can only imagine the loneliness they felt on those few minutes and hours that they’re alone in their hospital beds.

I have classmates I grew up with who committed suicide, one of them I considered my bestfriend for at least a year. We had a neighbor who hung herself in her room before the new year. I was outside their house with my cousin (her friend) when she found out. I wondered if I could’ve done something to stop her from doing it.

Other things death taught me:

• When someone dies, that is it. You won’t hear their voice, their walk, their laugh. It stops ultimately. Everything about that person disappears and there is nothing you can do about it. You can’t call them, text them, write a letter, or whatever. You can shout their name, cry yourself to sleep, but they are forever erased in this world. All unresolved questions will forever be burried with them. All secrets and lies will remain that way, unless, they have written it down somewhere.
• You never really move on from death. You just learn to live with the fact that the person you once experience life with is now gone.
• You forget about them. And when you remember them, it’s a bittersweet nostalgic feeling.
• The world moves on. It does not care that you lost someone. You’ll see everyone moving on with their lives, and you’re stuck in a place where you last interacted with your dead loved one.

At the risk of romanticizing death, I now see it as a good friend. It is something that’s concrete in this strange earth. But of course, I’m saying this as a mere spectator of people dying. I may have a different opinion when I’m the one counting my days. But at least, for now, I consider it as a friend I will meet sooner or later.