The Sleeping Giant

FIrstly, I would like to apologise for the delay in keeping up with this site. There have been a few issues in life that have come up whih required my attention. Most recently, a death in the family.

Something I wrote last week (Wednesday 18th April) 

 
My mum called me at home earlier tonight and told me my cousin passed away. My parents chose to tell me in the evening when they both were together as they didn’t know how I would react.

I’m not sure what I’m supposed to feel at the moment. We were quite distant (due to our age difference) even though we lived in the same city.

When I went to visit the family earlier tonight, everyone was in a very sombre mood, with his mum still sobbing and crying even more when I approached her.

The boys told me later on that my cousin came home from work tired, didn’t eat a lot and went to chill in his room. His mum and dad tried to wake him to eat but he was already dead. Paramedics were there for an hour or so but he couldn’t be revived. He was 38. He was a nice man, a good man, devout son. He was quiet, kept himself and his business to himself, didn’t make a lot of noise. Was a strict veggie, didn’t smoke or drink, no relationships I am aware of.

He lived with his parents, went to and from work, and chilled at this house, and he was happy with all that. I think this was his greatness. I looked around the room when people came over to their house and I could note at least something bad each of us had done in their past. With him, I couldn’t ever do that, and it wasn’t an act with him, he was just genuinely nice.

So at the moment, I’m a mix of sadness and anger. Sadness in the fact that he’s gone, that his parents (who are good decent people) are grieving at the loss of their son, the hardship of knowing that something like this is against the natural order of things.

I’m also feeling angry about it all too, the unfairness of it. I can’t help comparing us both, he was straight edged, clean living, quiet, decent, an obedient son, loving brother, known as the 'Gentle Giant' to his nieces and nephews. I on the other hand keep breaking culture, drink, eat poorly, disagree\rebel against my family and community, spending my money on extravagance and hedonistic indulgence, live life on the edge and in the moment, at times with reckless abandon.

It doesn’t seem fair that someone like him has died, whereas someone like me is still going.

I expressed some of this to his brother when everyone left (how out of all of us, he was genuinely nice and decent and I couldn’t pick anything he ever did wrong. How i died last year on my trip, yet I survived). He just said to me 'It's fate. For you, it wasn't your time, for him it was. Life's so short that you need to make the most of it and do whatever it is that gives you joy and happiness.'

I’m sorry, there’s a lot of emotions at the moment. But the thing that’s riding through my mind at the moment is ‘it should be me.’