Death and other musings
Death keeps visiting my thoughts lately.
A couple Friday’s ago my sister and I went to see an annual short film contest, MAMM17, run by the Vancouver Asian Film Festival. The shorts were incredible, and it was so heartening to see so many great films produced, written and directed by Asians, in particular Asian women. One of my favorites was called For Roy, written by a woman who had lost her father when she was a child, and her memory of his time in hospice. Another favorite, Little Manila, told the story of a maid dying and her employer’s attempt to recreate her childhood home before her death.
The following day we were given the news that my grandpa was dying, and went to see him one last time at the hospice.
And of course when it rains, it pours. Today making dinner I reached into a Costco-sized bag of potatoes and withdrew a half-eaten, melting potato. It literally was dripping a trail of brown snot. Who knew potatoes did that? As I dumped the bag of potatoes into the sink, I was greeted with hundreds of thriving, plump, writhing maggots, having a good old regular Wednesday night dance party. It smelled, literally, like death. After doing a quick heebie-jeebie dance in the kitchen (joined by Loona, who, delighted by the potato snot, intriguing scent of decay and party atmosphere, could not contain her signature pitbull twerk), I dealt with the sink of wriggling ravers and lit some incense to ease the stench of dead potato. The potent smoke immediately reminded me of family, of early mornings at my aunt’s house, when she’d light incense as offerings to the ancestors.
Seeing a body close to death is sobering. That, in conjunction with the novel I happen to be reading right now, called The End of Men by Christina Sweeney-Baird, has got me really looking at the life around me. The fur of my dogs up close, each black spot a miracle cluster in the vast fields of white across their backs, their heads, their paws. How they lazily roll over so your hands can reach all the extra scratchy spots they can’t get - the armpits, the chest, the belly. How they bury their faces in your armpits, chest and belly when they’re cold, or sleepy, or just in need of love. Lady’s movements becoming slower with each year, her legs becoming less sure. Noah’s shoulder, his neck, the back of his head. Tracing each of these parts, trying to memorize every divot, every grizzle of hair, the smooth/sticky texture of his skin, his sweat. How good it feels to smooth his eyebrows with my fingertips. The way his eyes have ten extra folds when they’re tired. The weird scars on his hands from his life before me.
One scene in the book describes at length the moment when a character’s husband announces he has a fever, knowing that means certain death within 48 hours. She cannot go to hold him or comfort him because she cannot risk becoming a carrier of the virus and infecting their son. They say their goodbyes from a distance, as he goes back up the stairs and shuts the door to their room, eventually dying in their bed. She describes the things she cannot fathom coming to an end - his looming silhouette in doorways, the way he brought her coffee and a pastry every Sunday in bed, the way he’d never get tired of making up stories for their child at dinner time, the padding of his footsteps going up and down the stairs. All of these seemingly insignificant moments that make up a life together, to never be again.
Death, sickness, suffering, loss, grief, are all parts of the inescapable impermanence of life. And yet knowing that, most of us seem to pretend death doesn’t happen. In Chinese culture, it’s so taboo that even the number 4, which sounds phonetically like the word for “death”, is omitted in most buildings these days, so there isn’t a 4th, 14th, 24th floor, etc. Yet why is something that happens to everyone so rarely talked about? If anything, shouldn’t we be more open about talking about what happens next? If our loved ones were to pass away, shouldn’t we be prepared for the tornado of feelings and shit that’s going to be thrown our way? Until it happens to us, the complete disappearance of someone we love is actually quite incomprehensible. There are few things in life that are completely irreplaceable. The unique connection and love we have for someone, and that they have for you, might be one of them.
We are all allotted a finite amount of breaths in our lifetime. Since the moment of your birth, the countdown has begun. What will you do with the remainder? Will you remember, moment to moment, to love? Every inhale reminds me I’m alive. Every exhale reminds me that everything, no matter how good or bad, will come to an end. The magic is in noticing that this moment is still before me, that Noah is still sitting on the couch, telling me about a funny video (“Baby. You have to see this.”) That Lady and Loona are still cuddling on the daybed, the only acknowledgement of my presence a casual side-eye and a gentle wag of tail. We all survived a two year pandemic of isolation, separation and fear. What will we do on the other side of that now? What do you want to do with the remainder of your moments, breath to breath?
For me, maybe it’s being more intentional with my thoughts, words, and actions. Telling people how I really feel. Saying what I really need. Doing what my body really wants, be that more rest, time in nature, reading, writing, or play. Reminding myself that humans actually die really easily. The fact that we haven’t is pretty awesome and weird. And to be at least as happy and thriving as those maggots in my potatoes. To be at least as excited as the dogs when they see Noah eating pizza (because what’s his is theirs), or when Noah meets someone who’s never had Treatza Pizza and gets to be the one to introduce them to it and watch them try it for the first time. And to at least tell my friends and family I love them as often as I can, hug them as much as they’ll allow lol. If the last two years and past couple weeks have taught me anything, it’s that waiting and planning doesn’t always work out. “Pushing that trip until next year,” “waiting for the perfect time” etc. can all be taken away from us at a moment’s notice. All we have is the present, each other, and love. Maybe when we avoid talking and thinking about death, we avoid talking and thinking about life too. If you think about your own death, what do you want to make sure happens in this life?
