Confronting the Stranger

Last Tuesday dark and mild, I rode my bike across the river, somewhat stoned. It was an exhilerating ride. I felt swift and immortal, wobbling along the rutted road, probably not paying as much attention as I should have, seeing as I had no bike light or helmet.

I came home and wrote about how alive I felt. Because I was feeling so much.

What made me feel so alive was this battering sense of mortality. At some point, midway across the bridge, I was suddenly aware that I could be dead or that I could die. Not that I hadn't realized such a thing before. As a girl, I would literally lose my breath at the idea that one day death would conquer us all. I was once obsessed with and horrified of the idea of death. But as I got older, I thought about it less and less. Not because I had dealt with the fear, but because I had to tuck it away in order to go on living.

But now, on the eve of my grandfather's funeral, I want to address this. Somehow. I need to. He deserves it. As do my father's parents and eldest sister, who have long since passed. In their memory, I somehow need to confront the idea of death. Of life well spent. What we leave behind; besides the funeral arrangements and pathetic odds and ends that get donated or sold at estate sales.

I tell you what: estate sales have always creeped me out, and I've lived a legacy of estate sales. My grandmother lives and breathes these events, and my mom and aunt plunder them with antiquing glee. All I ever saw were old ladies and lanky men in trucker hats, crates and tables of faded belongings that someone's own family couldn't make use of. The scariest and saddest estate sales were the ones that never even made it out of the house; overwhelmed family members who stuck price labels on items throughout the house and yard signs around the block, drawing you in to their misfortune and hidden history. Why do I want to see your grandmother's sordid collection of commemorative spoons? I never know whether to sneer or to cry. Because of the death hanging over the arrangements.

I wonder when I first became aware of death? The first death I can remember is that of my paternal grandmother, and yet, 20 years later, all I remember are small details; very little about the idea of death. A 4-year-old's sense of responsibility; a new flowered dress with matching straw hat for the service; my grandfather, stately in a brown suit, taking the podium; being puzzled over my crying sister; the laden table of food awaiting the guests, flush against the dark wood-paneled wall. This is the first death I'm aware of, but there is no accompanying sense of the universality of death. Not at 4.

I must have become aware of my own death shortly thereafter, because, as comical as it may seem, at 5 or 6, I shut my windows to the idea of vampires and was unable to reopen them for more than 10 years. Mythical death, or the paralyzing idea of undeath struck me then.

I've sometimes wondered if I am so mystified by death because I've had so few confrontations with it. One grandparent at 4, a grandparent and an aunt at 22, and now my grandfather. I can't help but think it's all downhill from here. Like a waterfall, more people in my life will pass. And more will force me to think about death.

I never had any sort of religious introduction to death, no explanations or justifications. There is no hell or heaven in my history, just life and, well, not life. I've listened to, maybe even contributed to conversations regarding afterlife. One friend may think after-life is equal opportunity, another hopes we each go where we believe we'll go.

Death was never introduced to me, so how do you confront a stranger? How do you discuss a mystery?

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