Sunday, April 27, 2008

Death's Aura

Title explicitly states the content of this post, so if you are one that doesn't like to read or think about the subject you should skip this entry and wait for one of my better moods.
How does one cope with what they can't even speak about?? It’s not usually a subject I like to think about, sure about my own death I am curious and wonder how my end will be – but as for thinking of the death of others (with the exception of one person) especially friends, I don’t. Some things happened earlier today, during my extra long break (11:00-2:00) and for the rest of the break I really couldn’t think of anything else. It’s the one question that I could never ask myself and was asked a few times before by others but could never respond to. The question is/was: “What would I do in the event of losing a close friend?” Simultaneously two answers come to mind: “I’ve never had a friend who died.” and “Her.” What about her? Simplified; she was just a person I happened to know. Her sister and I always had this love/hate/respect relationship going, but me and “her”, well she just happened to be in the places I usually was in. She just happened to share lots of the same interests as I had… She just happened to be shy and quiet as I was.. She just happened to like jelly beans as much as I did.. She just happened to always be around to keep me company when I couldn’t bare mixing with the others.. And she also just happened to be the one that hung back with me whenever everyone else was going to take part in some mischief and I’d shrink back for fear of what my parents would do if they caught me doing or heard I was participating in such activities. She was the one that stood by me when the others would jeer at me for being too chicken to take part. Yet, when she got sick and went to the hospital, I couldn’t even write her a letter, too ashamed to show I cared or was worried. She never did get well again and when she died, mother gave me the news. I shrugged my shoulders and said I didn’t know her that well and it wasn’t like we were close or even friends anywayz. If after all she had done she still wasn’t considered a friend, what defines friend from mere acquaintance, close friend from friend? To this day I still regret not at least acknowledging to her that she was a friend or even someone I cared about. Even knowing that she was really sick, it just didn’t really seem fathomable that someone you know/knew, hung out with would die.. death came for other people’s grandparents, great aunts/uncles, really old people no one bothered to really think about anymore and of course people you never knew never met and just read about in the newspapers. I couldn’t do it back then and I still have some trouble expressing it now. Some, I think, actually understand why, but then of course there are a few that believe the influence of going to school amongst those who have slight to acute issues in gender confusion, is finally starting to show its negative affects ( I might tell an “off color” joke here and there but that totally doesn’t mean I swing the other way.. ) That is very much not the reason for my expressions, and yet I wonder, I may not have regrets in regards to telling them how much they mean to me but does that make coping any easier?

“Sometimes you have to max out the good times with the people you love/care about because before you know it they’re gone”

“She” asked me for one simple thing and I couldn’t do it, more like I wouldn’t/was too shy to and refused. Her sister told me later that “she” had cried. The opportunity was there. A year, maybe more.. I don’t have the right to ask her to forgive me.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

La hawlwa wa la quwata illah billah. :( Qadara Allah Ma Sha' Wa fa'al. SubhanAllah, Allah wills, and whatever He Wills, He decrees.

sis, there are always regrets when a person dies. There is always the feeling that we should have done something/shouldn't have done something, etc. What you can do for her now is just pray for her, Ya Rubb. May Allah erase her sins, forgive her shortcomings, widen her grave, make it a garden of paradise, allow her to pass the Sirat quickly, and enter Jannatul Firdaus with the prophets and martyrs, Ya Rubb.

I see that you went to the funeral. InshaAllah, if you can check up on her sis/mother, that could be a way to just atone for the mistake of not "acknowledging that she was your friend", or whatever mistake you may feel you have done, ywkim?

sorry it took so long for us to reply. We just randomly visited your blog today, so we had no idea.

--the twins

El Hazard said...

Ameen

um btw, it wasn't "her" funeral I went to. "Her" funeral was 13 years ago - and I didn't attend it. The funeral a few days ago was for someone else...

While I was at uni today mother called me and told me a former classmate of mine died. We really weren't close at all even though she sat infront of me for 4 or 5 years but it's still an indescrible feeling to know that I'll never sit behind her again, hear her laugh or see her smile..

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.