Death

Up early sitting in the dark under the stars.  Last week I sat and looked at a white casket shining like a new car with the afternoon sun reflecting off its polished surface.  Inside, hidden from view, were all that remained of a dear friend. 

My wife wants to be cremated.  It repelled me at first but she cares nothing for her funeral.  I guess I will as well.  We are making a family graveyard here at Fair Haven and ordering stones for Betty’s parents to be buried here.  We will be as well. 

Yesterday my lover, my dog, and I visited my dad's grave.  I sat on his tombstone.       

Death.  I hate death.   I think Damien Hurst’s title The Physical Impossibility of Death in the Mind of Someone Living is one of the most sincere titles for an artwork.   We rale against death.  I was supposed to give a eulogy once, but I was struggling with my anger.   A friend of mine reminded me anger is a natural response to death.  He said we are made eternal so to have death interrupt eternity is as wicked a thing as we can imagine.  Death is being wronged in every way, to have such a glorious thing as the human being pass away, die, decease, is the greatest wrong.  

I cannot write longer on this.  It is giving too much quarter to something worthy of none.  Oh death where is thy sting?  In the hearts of those left living.  But our hearts are not without hope.  

Hirst and his work, "The Impossibility..."