Death and Dying

PREAMBLE
I want to start by saying that this blog may be a bit disturbing to some but i also want to assure anyone who reads this that there is no cause for alarm. I am not suicidal nor am i emo(tional). The subject of this blog, as i hope it will become quite clear and obvious, is just something that i seem to be transfixed by and something that has been plaguing my thoughts so much of late, i need to type it up, basically just get it out of my brain if possible.

I just can't stress enough how important it is not to see me as depressed or suicidal or whatever, coz i am far from that. It's just that my brain thinks in incomprehendable tangents, and normal people don't think about some stuff i do, what can i say, i'm just not normal....*sighs*....

So...

I think my obsession with death started after i'd been to my Granddad's funeral, until then, i'd never really thought about death much at all, never had to, never needed to!

I noticed it most when i was about 16. I'd walk home from school everyday and walk past the cemetary and always gaze in if i might see a ghost or a grave digger or something out of the ordinary i guess, something i don't see everyday.

I never saw any of that but it still made me curious. Come to think of it, i remember as kids in primary school we'd take a packed lunch, some iced water and our bikes with Dad to the cemetary. Now, my dad's not a morbid man but i guess we enjoyed the adventure of trekking there and he enjoyed the history of all the headstones, even i liked to see what year people had died and what time period they lived in. I was always lost for words even as a kid to see the graves of children, they just weren't very long and looked unusual in a grave yard where most graves were roughly the same length.

When i was in year 12, i studied photography, a truly great subject. I'd decided to photograph something from the cemetary which i walked past everyday. When one of my friends who i'd occasionally walk home with discovered that's where i was doing my project, i think he was a little bit weirded out with my death obsession. He said he noticed how i'd always look into the graveyard. At the time, i really didn't have an explanation for it other than it made me curious.

Then there was the time when my curiosity got the better of me and i undertook a mortuary science course at TAFE (college, not uni), bout all the things that got the rusted cogs turning. 'Death and Dying', the title of this blog, being a module that we covered in the bereavement and counselling semester. 'Maybe' i thought, 'maybe my curiosity and obsession with death is part of my career! Maybe i'm supposed to eat, sleep and breath death?!' But that didn't last long, thank goodness....after the course i realised i could never work in a morgue, just the thought/sight of one sent chills down my spine. It's not the death in itself or even the cadavers, but my nerves. I think i'd have a heart attack. I know you'd get used to it etc but late shifts and reflexes/natural gases etc.....no thanks.

I guess in the last ten years i've done extensive thinking about death and how it all ties in with what i believe as well and that could be part of my obsession with it. I mean the life that God offers me at the other end is so unbelievably mind-blowing compared anything on earth, not to mention that i'll be spending it with my creator, God, face to face - oh wow, words do not even BEGIN to paint a picture of my excitement and ecstacy.

When i start thinking like that, i get so bored of earth and restless and just wish it was over already. I know there's alot to be done but my attention span is short - there's a carrot hanging over the head of the freakin' homar for crying out loud?!

When i was on the train the other day death suddenly hit me! (i'm not a figment of your imagination, i didn't die!) This will sound stupid but i realised, there's only so many years of our life and then we die. Then we get acquainted with the unknown - so much mystery, so much anticipation. What will it be like, am i really going to heaven where my hearts desire is or will God send me to hell - eternity, what the heck is that going to be like...am i wishing my life away here for something i don't really want? After it hit me i realised how short our life really is, pretty soon we're going to enter into the next stage of life - eternity. Something dreadful washed over me, what if i'm happy being on earth? What if i'm happy just plodding along and being.....ordinary? What if i don't want anything about that to change at all??? What if i don't want to die and experience the next stage, what if i'm happy right here, right now? Heck, i sure as hell don't want to grow old - i'll be that much closer to the grim reaper and i've seen what he does with my sims!!!!

Lately i've been thinking about all the stuff i'm leaving behind. Will people laugh? Will they cry? Will they shrug their shoulders and say, 'didn't know her', what exactly will people's reactions be? And then i thought (as i do often) about my funeral what it would be like, would there be traitors there and what would the songs i would choose be and who would play what role etc. I suppose it's a habit i picked up from Mortuary. We all should be planning our funeral, we should be investing in coffins so that the heartache for our loved ones isn't a financial one.

I don't know, it got to a point on the train where i felt sad and got a headache from thinking too much about it - it consumed the whole trip home for goodness sake, so i closed my eyes and just sat in acknowledgment of God's presence.

I have no idea what the purpose of this blog truly was other than to just verbalise the thought of death that always, in a way, haunts me. Like i already said, it's unknown and i think that's what intrigues me the most about - no-one knows about it until they're dead.

The mystery of it and the unanswered questions create this overwhelming sense of anticipation and curiosity within me and i am forever searching for what happens next when i already know the answer!

Tink xoxo