Sr. Muerte

Death has always been apart of living. Yet for the most part I see the living suffer more over death than the dying do.  Death is everywhere yet only when it comes close to us do we panic and are filled with dread.

In among my possessions are a few things that belonged to family that is now dead. While the things have no special power, they do hold a memory (or so it appears to me). An old stuffed game-cock, a jar of buttons, clothing, etc.

We keep things for a dual purpose, both to remember the dead and keep them close to us, but also to reuse material items as to not waste money.

I cannot speak of any one death I have experienced (there are many) , but rather of how death is a part of every mythos known.

My grandpa use to say that only the good die young, a reflection that to live a long life, one most longingly  always do things that are regretted for the remainder of their life.

My great aunt used to say that death was just the end of a book we had written.

Most everyone has saying like these.

When I was in a communication class, I found an old poem printed in one of  Scotland's first newspapers. Titled the lady and death, it told of how death was dispatched early to reap a wicked woman that loved only herself. She tried to bribe death with gold, pearls, and in the end her young virgin daughter. None worked as death recanted that she already belonged to him because she was never truly living.

I found this poem quite long and interesting to read.  And it made me think about what is done so often these days. We try to buy out death with fancy health drugs, creams, etc. we have medical procedures done to our bodies in the hopes to live a bit longer, all the while forgetting to really live in the first place.

I have always been told that death is sad and that it is okay to be sad, for a while, but do not let your loss prevent you from living. I think that is sound advice.

I try to remember them and the wisdom they passed on to me, but you cannot look forward while looking back. Even hard and painful mistakes are a blip if we learn and change because of them.

There is no saint without a past , nor sinner without a future. This is another expression that I look to when I feel down because of a death. But in the end I keep on living and holding on for as long as needed, the material things that link me to the past.


- BOOK