Memento mori

[johan]

Back again from the funeral. It is always weird to see someone go for good and never return, to know that that's a voice you will never hear again, someone whose hugs you will never again receive, whose food and hospitality you will never again experience. Today, this only happens when people die, but not so long ago, it was the same when a poor person moved abroad. Small wonder the Irish held America wakes.

I have realized that the last year or two, I have become mortal. Someone once wrote that you are immortal for as long as you live, it isn't until you die that there is a difference between the mortal and the immortal. At any given moment in time, all who live are immortal. Well, that may be true. However, there is another difference between mortal and immortal. When you are young, it is very difficult to accept that you one day will die. You know it intellectually, perhaps it scares you beyond reason, but you don't really accept it, deep down. And then, one day, that knowledge suddenly permeates all of you, and you finally realize, know that it's true. You will die. Then you become mortal. This can happen for many reasons, but being surrounded by death is the most typical, I suppose. People who have been very ill and recover will return knowing they're mortal. Soldiers in a war who see their comrades die will reach this knowledge.

I think I've gradually arrived there during the past year. I think it's a combination of aging and suddenly seeing all the people and relatives I used to know as middle-aged, turn 65, 70, and 75, or die. I remember a teacher I had, who was 50, active and strong, in the bloom of his life. Now he's 80. I remember my mother's 30th birthday quite well. This year she turns 65. The people I knew who were 65 when my mother was 30 are all dead now, without exception. So it has finally dawned on me that I, too, will die. And that knowledge is a bad thing and a good thing, but I think mostly a good thing.

A propos which, I should call my father. We speak far too seldom; we're both bad at keeping in touch. My parents divorced when I was seven and dad moved to a different town, started a new family, so we haven't really been that close. But he's a good man, I like him a lot, and he definitely feels like a father to me.

Comments

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

Call your Papa, that's a good son!

[jophan.livejournal.com]

I will!

[randy-byers.livejournal.com]

Yes to all of this. Watching my parents age, feeling my own body change with age -- mortality settles into the bones. Don't know that I've actually accepted it completely yet, but I feel it more and more. And it was good to spend time with my family recently, despite the fact that they remind me of our mortality!

[jophan.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure how thoroughly I've accepted it either. It could also be just shell shock from seeing a number of people die in a short time. Unless this absurd hectic dying continues, the shock may pass and I'll go back to the immortal version of Johan again.

[mainfisch.livejournal.com]

I don't know if mortality itself is shocking me. But sometimes I'm kind of beginning to feel rushed whenever I'm thinking about dreams that did not come true yet and plans that did not work yet, and in some regards the train might have left the station without me already.

On the other hand, old age might provide freedoms that we didn't know when we were younger, freedoms that are so precious that we wouldn't want to give them away for less rheumatism in the bones any more.

Life is a strange journey, isn't it? Whenever we're thinking that we learned how to deal with it, some new, yet unknown experiences come sneaking around the bend...

[jophan.livejournal.com]

Isn't it so?

However, I think there are only two things that make me feel rushed. I will never read all the books I want to read and I am afraid I will never again work with something that really makes me enthusiastic. I like my job, it's challenging, workmates are excellent, salary is quite satisfactory, but writing documentation for programming tools will never enthuse me.

And I almost remember the moment I realized I would never manage to read more than a few thousand more books in my life. *shudder*

But other than that I'm fine. I never had any grand plans for life anyway, other than being reasonably happy and satisfied. And that I am.

[gnapp.livejournal.com]

So far, life has only got better and better, and I assume it will keep on like that. It does scare me a bit that sooner or later, I'll be too fragile to keep on doing what I'm doing (like riding), but apart from that there's nothing I feel I must do. (Or isn't it rather "must have done"?)

I re-read books. There are thousands of books I will have missed, just as there are thousands of things I would have loved to do but will never try, thousands of people I would have loved but will never meet, and so on. I can't have it all; I enjoy what I have.

(And then, maybe, that's a sign that I'm still not quite comfortable with the thought of me being mortal...)

[jophan.livejournal.com]

But b-b-books! I'm fine with not meeting/loving etc all the people I could have met/loved etc. But not getting to read all the good books I could have read makes me desperate!

As all of you have guessed by now, I almost never re-read books. (I think your attitude is the more sensible one, gnapp, but I can't bring myself to adopting it. Not yet.)

[syntaxhorror.livejournal.com]

The sooner you realise you're mortal, the longer (hopefully) you have to come to terms with it, if you ever do. And it is difficult to come to terms with. I think that is why we often convince ourselves we've actually done so, only to find our believes shattered at a later point.

But I also think that becoming mortal makes you appriciate life more, and that is a good thing, since no one is immortal forever.