On Death and Dying

Throughout my life I have always found comfort in the fact that one day, I am going to die. Death does not frighten me and I do not think it ever has or will. Non-existence does not bother me and also, never has. The very thought of receiving an eternal rest puts some sort of calm into my bones and almost strikes joy into my blood. I would love nothing more than for this world and all its future generations to go spinning on without me. Some people have found that strange that I take comfort in knowing death will one day come and so, allow me to explain.

When I was younger, no older than thirteen, I saw my grandmother die. She was taken off life support and she was dying before my eyes. In her final breaths, she seemed completely at peace and ease. The way in which I knew my grandmother was a woman in a wheelchair most of the time who could not do anything on her own. She had arthritis and could hardly lift a glass unaccompanied. She had to be fed and she was not taken care of in the nursing home her children had put her in. Every day of her life seemed like a struggle and I would go to visit her every Tuesday. I found it brave that she would put on a happy face for me, but I knew that all the medications and ailments she had were ruining her insides however slowly and painfully. When she died, the very first thought that came into my head was that she was not yet old enough to die. I was young and so I thought the proper age to die was around 80 or 90 if you were to die of your ailments in old age. I had no idea how old my grandmother was but she was nowhere near 80 or 90.

The most peaceful state I had ever seen her was in those moments after she died. When her body seemed to give in to her new state and she seemed completely relaxed. I thought about it then for a long time and even when I went to her funeral, I was still thinking about it. In my religion they burn the body and sprinkle the ashes, but even that seemed better than being unable to do anything for yourself whilst also in a considerable amount of pain. Her life of struggling was over and, when I reflected back on this, I realised that this was actually a good thing and that her death meant that she could finally have a rest without any pain, or medication or suffering. At the funeral, everyone around me was upset and crying, they were weeping and comforting each other. Then there was me, an on-looker to all of them, realising that one day, I too will be rewarded with this eternal sleep. It was never a bad thing or a negative thing, it was filled with eternity. I always thought that eternity was the best kind of full.

A few years ago, a friend of mine committed suicide by hanging himself. Him and I were in the middle of a university project together about publishing and he had gone missing into the woods near his home. I was emailed regarding what had happened to him. It is not the shock of death that scared me, but rather the shock of the fact that when I went back into university and to my lectures - I would no longer see him. There was an absence that I had to overcome. I had a few friends that had died in my lifetime but this was more difficult so because we were also supposed to be working on a university project together. I finished the project, went to hand it in and then did my thesis from home - I really just could not face that absence and so, until graduation day, I did not go back to university. I spent a long time thinking about what leads one to kill themselves, having never experienced suicidal tendencies myself, it is something foreign to me. I felt a bit empty when I learned the blueprints of how it all happened. I always knew my friend as a joker, a man filled with laughter and one of the funniest people I had ever met in my life - he had an obsession with the story of the Sandman and was a great writer. This made me even more confused as to why he would take his own life. In my eyes, death was always a good thing, but at this particular time it was the act of deliberation that struck me as confusing. This was a moment in which I needed to make myself understand what it was to commit suicide. I read some books: The Anatomy of Melancholy by Robert Burton, published 1621 was the first book I consulted. There were a few things that stood out to me whilst I was reading this book. In order to understand my friend’s death, I had to get lost in it. The one quotation from the book that struck me and kept me re-reading it was this:

“Now go and brag of thy present happiness, whosoever thou art, brag of thy temperature, of thy good parts, insult, triumph, and boast; thou seest in what a brittle state thou art, how soon thou mayst be dejected, how many several ways, by bad diet, bad air, a small loss, a little sorrow or discontent, an ague, &c.; how many sudden accidents may procure thy ruin, what a small tenure of happiness thou hast in this life, how weak and silly a creature thou art.”

There is something damning about this quotation. It is like happiness seems to be almost impossible and implausible, like it cannot be understood. However small a bad thing may be, it could easily destroy an entire life of good. This was the first thing I had understood. No matter how much good there was, one minute detail of negativity could send it crashing down into the epitome of darkness. I had never really felt this way, but for the people who do - I am trying my best to understand you.

The next book I read was The Poetry of John Clare. I had borrowed it from the local library and was spending my time deciphering the poetry of a man who constantly wanted to die. I was learning now about the weight of wanting to die against the peacefulness of dying. The act of suicide never seemed like a peacefulness to me, but then again I had never experienced its grand range of emotions. Through John Clare’s poetry, I wanted to understand the link between the human mind whilst alive and filled with thought and havoc to the peacefulness of knowing death is coming. The final lines of “I Am” was something that always stood out to me as an understanding of this want for a peacefulness of the mind:

“Untroubling and untroubled where I lie

The grass below—above the vaulted sky.”

The act of not being ‘troubling’ was the first thing that stood out to me. Did someone who was suicidal feel as if they were ‘troubling’ others? It is possible. And the ‘trouble’ of life was the havoc of the human mind, the ability to feel all these negative emotions at once. The bliss of being ‘above’ was something I could sympathise with as I knew death as a comfort. The act of suicide is therefore not really the same thing as I wait for my death patiently, as if I were to be chosen. The act of suicide is that someone is taking their own peacefulness into their own hands and the very causation of it is the sheer want to be out of their own condition. The want for peace overwhelms the mind. These who suffer with depression and suicidal thoughts are the most emotionally connected people I know. It is something that has great complexity.

When I read my next book, I took into account the fact that not only had I read it before, but I had never really read it with this eye and attention to the suicidal thoughts of the main character. I ended up re-reading for about the fifth time, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. There is something emotionally overwhelming about this novel but you never realise the emotional turmoil of the main character until you really look closely to every detail. Even nature is turbulent within his own existence. In Frankenstein there was always a quotation that stood out to me as being the key to Victor’s emotional state. Throughout my five readings, I had never applied this to any suicidal tendencies, but upon this one - I could not stop thinking about it. I wrote it down on a post-it note, folded it up and placed it inside a jar of other quotations. I knew what it meant now:

“Nothing is more painful to the human mind than, after the feelings have been worked up by a quick succession of events, the dead calmness of inaction and certainty which follows and deprives the soul both of hope and fear.”

This is something I understood as the anti-climax previously. But with a different eye, I was now reading this in a way which suggested to me that the character had suicidal tendencies. This great depression that the character feels in the ‘calmness of inaction’ is almost Shakespearean, like Hamlet he does not act but he is withdrawn. This withdrawal presents us with a character who is left alone with his turmoil of emotions, almost like drowning. And if someone is left alone in this state then it is known that peace itself would be impossible. Suicidal tendencies therefore, would seem like a tranquil luxury in comparison.

From what I understood about my friend is that he was alone on the two days before he died. During this time, he had gone missing and nobody knew where he was. He was even in the newspaper and for some reason, I had no idea he was feeling this way. Literature can help us out, but knowing what someone is feeling just by the facial expression they have applied is impossible. When I thought about how his mind must have been racing with these multitudes of emotions, absence seemed to be more understandable. Death was already a comfort for me, but absence was the problem. I knew now that the absence of his state was the symbolism of peace and I am glad that he has found that peace. However, it is saddening that he had to leave at such a young age and feeling the way he did in the moments before he died. Deciphering this has been a struggle for me and yet, I have come to understand different things about death and how death in itself, brings peace and tranquility. Sometimes, it is a last resort - for the old, they have something to look forward to which is eternal rest after a lifetime of work and thought. For the suicidal, it seems to be the exit point for emotional overload, another version of peace. It is the answer to a struggle of pain and suffering and only the person involved in their own death can know exactly what those emotions hold. It is the havoc of the mind and human condition that causes one to seek refuge in tranquility and death is the only constant state of tranquility we have. For the young, death seems like a lifetime away and yet, we go on living and toiling, not knowing whether tomorrow we could be sent into that rest, that comfort and that bliss. It is possible that we could die today or tomorrow, or maybe in fifty years. But what is well-known is that there is no way of stopping it when it does happen and hopefully, after much consideration - you will not want to stop its path at all. This is something I understood as the anti-climax previously. But with a different eye, I was now reading this in a way which suggested to me that the character had suicidal tendencies. This great depression that the character feels in the ‘calmness of inaction’ is almost Shakespearean, like Hamlet he does not act but he is withdrawn. This withdrawal presents us with a character who is left alone with his turmoil of emotions, almost like drowning. And if someone is left alone in this state then it is known that peace itself would be impossible. Suicidal tendencies therefore, would seem like a tranquil luxury in comparison.

From what I understood about my friend is that he was alone on the two days before he died. During this time, he had gone missing and nobody knew where he was. He was even in the newspaper and for some reason, I had no idea he was feeling this way. Literature can help us out, but knowing what someone is feeling just by the facial expression they have applied is impossible. When I thought about how his mind must have been racing with these multitudes of emotions, absence seemed to be more understandable. Death was already a comfort for me, but absence was the problem. I knew now that the absence of his state was the symbolism of peace and I am glad that he has found that peace. However, it is saddening that he had to leave at such a young age and feeling the way he did in the moments before he died. Deciphering this has been a struggle for me and yet, I have come to understand different things about death and how death in itself, brings peace and tranquility. Sometimes, it is a last resort - for the old, they have something to look forward to which is eternal rest after a lifetime of work and thought. For the suicidal, it seems to be the exit point for emotional overload, another version of peace. It is the answer to a struggle of pain and suffering and only the person involved in their own death can know exactly what those emotions hold. It is the havoc of the mind and human condition that causes one to seek refuge in tranquility and death is the only constant state of tranquility we have. For the young, death seems like a lifetime away and yet, we go on living and toiling, not knowing whether tomorrow we could be sent into that rest, that comfort and that bliss. It is possible that we could die today or tomorrow, or maybe in fifty years. But what is well-known is that there is no way of stopping it when it does happen and hopefully, after much consideration - you will not want to stop its path at all.