Someone I know - and love - is dying. It's not much of a surprise, to be honest. She's been in and out of hospital for the past few weeks, and she's been in generally poor health for some time: she's weak, she's coughing up blood, and she's just plain tired.
And I can't help but wonder if that makes it all so much harder. I've lost a number of people close to me over the years; some went quickly, some went slowly. And there's something different about watching (or in this case, hearing about) someone die gradually. People talk about relief of someone dying after a long illness - "At least the suffering's over," they say. This has always struck me as overlooking (glossing over) all the conflicting emotions and feelings that come with death. Yes, their suffering's over, and that is wonderful. But what about the guilt that feeling brings: being glad someone died, even if they were in horrible pain, makes me feel guilty. Isn't fighting for life what makes us human? Should we, even in the face of insurmountable odds, rage against the dying of the light?
Dylan Thomas was often dismissed by critics as being too sentimental a poet to be taken seriously. I think there's something to be said for sentimentality. I think, deep down inside, I am a sentimentalist myself.
Shhhh, it'll be our little secret.
No comments:
Post a Comment