The good die young
It was my cousin’s funeral today. I didn’t sleep very well last night. I didn’t really know him that well in all honesty, but one thing I do remember is that he was kind, honest and reserved. As I was growing up, he was always there in the background making himself heard - but not making a lot of noise compared to the others. In that, he never got into trouble, caused a stir, or anyone any problems that I am aware of.
It’s really strange, the idea of death. For significant periods in my life I always felt that I was having a strange dance with death, who played the part of a cruel mistress. Sometimes, she would tap me on the shoulder announcing herself into my life. Other times, she would grab me and kiss me like a passionate lover allowing myself to be engulfed in all she offered. And then there are the long sustained periods of time, where she spurned my advances as I chased her, wanting her to turn, face me, and then embrace me like an old friend, and in doing so, invite me with her and put me out of the pain and misery I was feeling at the time. This has been more prevalent in the last few years.
My cousin’s death has reopened old wounds and memories. All those times when I’ve tangled with death, and the upheaval caused to others around me when she departs. It’s difficult is to describe that grief at times.
In my first encounter with death, she struck me unexpectedly when I was being a typical 15-year-old boy, tall, skinny, bad hair, braces, glasses etc. My clothes didn’t fit me properly, I was unkempt, with woman trouble, school issues and aspirations of riches and wealth. After death kissed me hard and left abruptly (taking my uncle as her prize), neither I nor anyone in the family were ever the same again. Suffice to say, that 15-year-old boy I described had become pure rage who wanted to make the world burn, to receive and inflict pain around him. And I’m not talking about childish spats here or there, no, this is a pure hot white unadulterated rage that would make Achilles tremble before me. I grew up, I filled out, but I wasn’t the same. The rage replaced where my vital organs once were.
The best way to describe grief for me, it’s when your insides have been ripped out, and you start healing from the outside in, but there’s a small part that remains empty. So no matter how many times life puts you back together, you’re never really like you once were. One day, I may tell you some of those stories in more detail. But at the moment I’m still trying to process everything that has happened.
Earlier this morning when they brought him home and preformed the last rights, I stood there watching his parents and family openly grieve, acknowledging all the roles he played in life. Child, brother, uncle, friend. His mum in particular wailing at the loss of her child…It hurt. I wept slightly without anyone seeing.
Watching all of this, the thing I find so unfair is the fact that he died and I didn’t. He was so genuine in both his kindness and the ease he found it to be nice. He lived his life in a way that his parents, my parents, Indian society, and society as a whole, would find accepting and appealing. He was both warm and kind to all that he met, never drank alcohol or smoked, gone with everyone he met, never had a disagreements fights or arguments that I’ve ever seen, nor have I ever heard anyone say anything bad about him. This is such deep contrast to me and both my actions and behaviours.
If you put us both on the pros and cons list, he would win every time. On paper, he was supposed to be the one that gets married, settles down, happy family life for himself and those around him. Yet that hasn’t happened. He died, I didn’t when my time came. I survived, and it seems unfair that someone like him is gone, someone like me stay.
As I stood outside, focussing on the cold rain hitting my face, I was unhappy with the people around me who just seemed…lesser than he was. There was a split of people who were laughing and joking like nothing had happened, arranging meet ups, drinks, making jokes and not respecting the fat that this was a funeral. Others who were sombre and reflective. The dichotomy of emotions that was shown was quite noticeable to me. I felt some satisfaction that I wasn’t friends with any of the former anymore.
Death is so indiscriminate that regardless of the social economic background, your age, religion, sexual or marital status, it can still strike at any given moment. And despite how irrational it sounds, it feels so unfair but with all the things I’ve done, my reckless abandon for rules, my own safety, this thirst for adventure, and having yet another story to tell, I break rules alongside hearts. He was the best of us and he was taken.
If life and death was based on rules, fairness, and justice, it would leave the goods behind to make the world better. I died last year, but I survived. I should have how it happened I still don’t really know and I don’t think I ever will but I survived.
Yet, it doesn’t seem fair.
