Death

Why do people die?

There are sayings that death itself is a blessing as much as life is. Or maybe better. I don’t understand. One day that person was there, so close to you, so within your reach, breathing so much alive, and then the next day he just…. gone.
How could people just.. go? Just vanished, like in a snap, in a blink of eye, then they stop breathing, stop talking, stop living.. stop being within your reach..?

Lately I’m surrounded by so many griefs. I landed in the airport (yeah, guys, by the way i’m home to Indonesia again! Pardon me for sounding so grumpy, cant help it), my brother hugged me and said one of our family’s friend has passed away an hour earlier. 

…………………

so much for a ‘welcome home’ news. A total speechless, followed by a denial. I was just pretending I did not hear anything, not knowing that one of my best critic has no longer breath the same air with me. The moment I heard the word “passed away” it felt like I immediately built this emotion fortress, barricading anything that relates to death, sadness, grief and so on. I guess I am scared. Scared of what sounds like an eternal goodbyes.

A few days later, my uncle was gone too. I am so tired of crying, I felt like I am sad but the tears just wont come out anymore. So I just stood there in the living room, listening to my mum spoke over the phone but her voice and other sounds too start to become noises I dont understand. I was not sure how I felt. Is it grief? Sadness? Emptiness?

My cousin–whose father was in the coffin at the moment I spoke to him, was a brave guy. He laughed, he tried his best not showing his tears, so that anyone else, his mum, his sisters and nephews and other cousins could turn to him for comfort. But I think it was so stupid, he deserved every right to cry. So when he was alone, staring blankly at his house I came to him and just hugged him. I practically did not know what to say to him. And he hugged me back, and cried. Which was so good for him, because I hate seeing him smiling and telling everybody again and again that he was glad his father is at peace now. For me, he sounded like he was telling that to himself, like a spell or a chant so he wont break down at the critical moment.
Then I promised him I will be there, also if months, years ahead when he felt like sadness are going to tear him up from the inside (which, I sometimes still felt. Yeah, I’m not over my dad’s death, I will admit it honestly and openly), I’ll be with him.

The whole thing with death, no matter how many times I tried to inject something positive into my mind, I just could not see it. I could not see anything good of death, despite people sayings’ about the dead person being free from all painful things, eternal peace and everything.

At some point I felt so……. confused. The other times I felt angry. Only I don’t know who is it I’m angry at. I don’t want to get angry at God, I still believe that things happen under His control. Still… I have so many questions. Why reunite family if death would just tear them up? Why do people have to experience death? 

How could people just….. gone? To a place I could not follow yet, all of a sudden?
When you grow up, you learn that people around you are not going to stay around you forever.
When you grow up, you learn that forever is God’s right.
When you grow up, you learn that there is something called grief.
When you grow up, you learn that sooner or later you just have to deal with it.

Children have an abstract concept of death, I think. They just could not understand the meaning of eternal goodbye, It is something that they could not even imagine, and I envy them for that.