Memento Memoria

         

 Title Unknown

             Don't get me wrong, I love life as much as the next person.  Sometimes, however, I slip into these intense fascinations with death- how people do it, their last words, whether it was ironic or not, and whether or not they were prepared for it.  I believe that there have been some truly beautiful words spoken before someone passed on. (Euphemisms are annoying by the way, but it'd look bad to have the words dead, death, and dying written all over this post.  The neighbors will talk, for heaven's sake.)  Also, it's fascinating that people die in so many different ways, as opposed to being born, which usually has only a few ways of coming about.  Usually, it's through the vagina.  But I digress!  What fascinates me the most are those who, for whatever reason, decide to take death into their own hands, who voluntarily cross the threshold themselves.  What I'm referring to are suicides.  When was the first suicide?  According to Wikianswers, "A long time ago. (Like really a while ago.)"   Hm.  There you have it.  I think it's safe to say that people have been offing themselves just as long as other basics of human nature have been around, such as procreation, verbal communication, murder, and making small animals into pets.   But does that make it ok?   Well, that depends on you; your beliefs, your outlook on life, the views of your society.  But regardless of what you think about suicide's placement on the moral scale, you can't deny that it has produced some damn good works of writing.  It has also produced some really fucking terrible ones too.  But let's just look at a good one for now.  As an example, the poet Sara Teasdale's note:

When I am dead, and over me bright April
Shakes out her rain drenched hair,
Tho you should lean above me broken hearted,
I shall not care.
For I shall have peace.
As leafey trees are peaceful
When rain bends down the bough.
And I shall be more silent and cold hearted
Than you are now. 

Lovely, lovely.  Although I will never understand her spelling of 'leafy' as 'leafey.'  Perhaps when you are about to kick the bucket, you get sort of an artistic license on the written English language.  Or, you just don't give a fuck.  It has been argued that this was not a suicide note at all, and that it was written many years before her (consensual) death.  But even so, the very first line indicates what she had on her mind when writing it.  "I shall not care." and "I shall have peace." say to me that she didn't mind death so much as most do.  Some people go berserk trying to avoid the signs of aging, when what they really want is to distance themselves from their eventual death.  I find it wonderful that some people don't shy from it, that they march foreword with their best foot, their eyes looking straight.  The truly amusing notes are those that are not dripping with regret or spite and don't dump blame on anybody.  We've got quite enough of those thanks very much.  The best ones, in my opinion, are the ones that truly shine with honesty:

Dear World, I am leaving you because I am bored. I feel I have lived long enough. I am leaving you with your worries in this sweet cesspool - good luck.  -George Sanders

Goodness.  I hope that when I'm dying, I have the compassion to wish the world luck beforehand.  Then there are those who match this sincerity by using their final lines to apologize, which is always a polite gesture.

Excuse all the blood; sorry for firing the weapon indoors.  -Per Yngve Ohlin

And then of course, there are the ones that are just outright bizarre.

My darling,

May her guts rot in hell- I loved her so much.

-Anonymous

Yeah I don't really know either.  Some believe suicide a grave sin, some believe it is within a person's human rights.  If we have the right to live, surely we should be given the right to die?  It is truly up to the individual to decide.  So in the (final) words of Jerzy Kosinski:

I am going to put myself to sleep now for a bit longer than usual.  Call it Eternity.

Memento Silva

Titiana Sleeping     

        Childhood memories seem to have a mind of their own.  They often rise to the surface of our conscious unbidden, and sometimes without reason.  For some, their value is equal to precious gems; a glittering chain to the past.  One memory I have that has stood the test of time is the day I spent by a creek in sunny North Carolina.  Nobody died, no one lost their job, no one got engaged, and nobody won the lottery.  Yet this day still outshines the rest, like the unwavering light from a planet in a sea of flickering, fading stars.

            It is not yet ten in the morning and already it is hot outside.  Today is Saturday and I am an uncharacteristically bored nine year old, lounging on the carpet with a book. The pine scented wind comes wafting in through screens caked with pollen.  Looking up through the window, I am hypnotized by the long pine needles swaying like feather dusters in the breeze.  Why on earth was I reading inside on a day like this, when I could be reading outside?  I cram the book into a miniature pink backpack, toss in a few pretzel sticks and make my way to the back door.

            “And just where are we off to, my little peach pit?”  The eternally testy tone of a mother sounds from the kitchen.

            “Only the creek,” I call back in a would-be casual tone. “Jeez mom.”  It doesn't faze her.

            “Well, then let Joseph go with you.”  She replied.  Fine, fine!  My older brother is the less likely of my two siblings to argue with me, so it's just as well.  The two of us set off down the steep hill where the creek rushes under the road at the bottom.  We had run through these woods so often that we no longer needed the faint trail that ran through it, and if we ever found ourselves lost, we simply made a new path.  After many stops to observe funky shaped fungi and bird calls, we’ve reached the end of the second section of woods; our destination.

           The creek widened into a pool and flowed through two great tunnels beneath the road.  On my right, a little waterfall chattered and sang above the creek, and the forest burst with summer greenery on my left. Sitting on the ledge that ran over the tunnels, I tried my hardest to focus on the book, but every flash of sun on the water kidnapped my attention, stealing my eyes from the page.  My brother thwacked pretzel crumbs into the clear creek beneath us, longing to see a tadpole or two.  Beneath my feet a leaf sailed past and vanished into the tunnel- I imagined an ant on it, riding with the current, off to save his ant hill and fight against enemy grasshoppers. 

            Here in Heaven, where the birds are an orchestra and flowers paint the grass, is my haven where nothing matters but fresh air.  I’m far away from switches and screens, buttons and timers.  This place is my solace.  Here is where the sound of humming refrigerators is replaced with the buzzing of bees, and the morphing clouds against brilliant blue are better than a cinema.

            Just my brother, Mother Nature, myself, and no other.  This is the day I fell in love with the flora of a forest.  It is a day that won’t be easily forgotten.