A study of life after death. As an atheist, do not expect an examination of metaphysical myths and faithful fictions. Instead, it is a personal evaluation of ongoing life after the death of a loved one.
Introduction
In the wee hours of this morning, a personal anniversary came and went even as I slept, a marker in time which serves to remind me how often I’ve journeyed around the sun. Today I turned 37.
Birthdays represent something different to everyone, and in that sense I am no different than anyone else. Unlike so many others, however, my leap from one year to the next measured on the date of my birth seldom means wild celebrations fogged with mind-altering accoutrements.
Part I
Impoverished of heart by a loneliness so profound as to be insurmountable, I sat alone in the confines of an existence marred by heartache.
I was alienated from my family after coming out.
Struggles with accepting myself and what it meant to be gay in America forced me to realize I would never be equal, could never share in the same joys as others.
I buried myself in work, became the workaholic that would define me for many years to come, and that only to realize immediately how unhappy it made me…yet driven to pull the covers of employment over my head so the world could not find me, could not torment me. Or at least so I could not be forced to examine my own misery in the reflection I cast in the mirror of years.
The tatters of my life seemed like nothing more than fodder for the cannons of hate and agony. Such was the self-imposed prison in which I became entrapped.
Part II
Phone dropped in a puddle, perhaps the only such puddle to be found in all of Marshall, Texas. Zapped. Gone. Broken beyond words and left in an unstable and increasingly useless state.
Replaced, said phone, but not yet setup properly.
This morning, to my terror, two calls from the family farm. Both from last night. One pronouncing death.
Part III
It began with the quick and painless death of a wasp, and before that a gecko, each act filled with compassion tainted with the crimson stench of killing. Finally, as though inevitably, it carried me to that place I ignored these past many months: the death of Derek, the death of my grandmother, the death of too many.
Part IV
Memorializing the dead. Like a celebration of continuity, a reminder that all things end, an acknowledgement of birth’s more bitter half, a realization of the logical conclusion to what was begun.
This afternoon I attended a memorial service for Jenny’s mother.
