Death, be not proud though some have called thee – one of poet John Donne’s best work made only ‘literature’ sense when in school. The efforts lay in understanding the meter of the poem and possibly memorising it for elocution class.
The realisation that this metaphysical poet was obsessed with death in a bid to scale it down from the pedestal that most humanity had placed it on, came much later. Like Donne, others have also tried to understand the greatest mystery of life – DEATH. Essays have been written and religions have stamped their seal on death and its various offshoots – life after death, life during death, reincarnation etc etc.
But sadly, no explanation has calmed the nerves. One essay argues that death is in fact good.
Death, he argues, is a good thing, and for numerous reasons. Well, maybe it’s good because when you’re old, decrepit, and ill, you are ready to go. But in a world without death, that wouldn’t be the case, for death is the result of that decrepitude.
Another essay tries to make sense of death, though not too successfully.
Death is something we all have to make sense of. We might notice how we weren’t born for millions of years, and those millions of years of nonexistence didn’t bother us at all, and then realize that our death will be very much like that. We might recognize the uncountably massive amount of possible people that never actually came into existence, and recognize how monumentally lucky we are to have even been born at all.
Those who have lost a loved one in life appear to be more in control when hearing and dealing with death later in life, says psychologists. But that does not make death easier to handle.
There are essays that help demystify the mystery.
Now, of all the benefits that virtue confers upon us, the contempt of death is one of the greatest, as the means that accommodates human life with a soft and easy tranquillity, and gives us a pure and pleasant taste of living, without which all other pleasure would be extinct.
And there is writing that tries to make the subject a little lighter. And who better than actor Steve Matin who wrote a light piece when his father died.
After he died at age 83, many of his friends told me how much they loved him—how generous he was, how outgoing, how funny, how caring. I was surprised at these descriptions. During my teenage years, there was little said to me that was not criticism. I remember him as angry. But now, ten years after his death, I recall events that seem to contradict my memory of him….
There are some more funny obituaries too.
If you’re about to throw away an old pair of pantyhose, stop. Consider: Mary Agnes Mullaney (you probably knew her as “Pink”) who entered eternal life on Sunday, September 1, 2013. Her spirit is carried on by her six children, 17 grandchildren, three surviving siblings in New “Joisey”, and an extended family of relations and friends from every walk of life.
.And there are those who write funny obits.
The new media obit queen, Jade Walker, writes The Blog of Death and is so fascinated by the end-of-life rituals that she exchanged her wedding vows in a cemetery, not far from the grave of the poet Robert Frost.
And on this note, let’s remember Riddhi Thakkar, one of PaGaLGuY.com’s youngest employees who passed away today. The last time, some of us visited her, we came back positive and happier because Riddhi made us all laugh. Let’s remember her like that. Next time, someone cracks a joke at PG HQ, let’s look up to heaven, am sure we will see Riddhi chuckling.