We are all dying. Our days are numbered. Yours, mine. There
will come a time when we will cease to exist.
My body will stop working; the cells and tissue that make up
my being will give up. Blood will stop pumping, pores and sweat glands will run
dry. Every single muscle that lies beneath my skin will come to rest, never to
flex again. Marrow will seep from my bones, leaving them desolate and fragile. Joints
will separate, tendons will go limp. The muscle that pumps in my chest will
slow to a stop, like a battery running out of acid. My lungs can finally rest
after a lifetime of ceaselessly drawing in and pushing out air. Organs will
shrivel into pruny, useless masses. The electrical and chemical impulses that
dominate brain functions will sizzle away into nothingness, the soft squishy
tissue calcifying, no longer bothering to tell the rest of my body what to do
in order to survive.
All of my scars and calluses, the titles of the chapters of
my life, will mean nothing. My voice will be locked away, into a treasure chest
that has no key. My dreams will sink into a deep abyss, never to be wakened or
realized again. Every step I’ve taken on this planet will be forgotten, every
whisper that has escaped my lips will only drift on the winds of both summer
rains and hurricanes.
My body will go somewhere, I suppose, something people will
call an “eternal resting place.” But there is no such thing, really.
Graveyards are torn up all the time to make new space for new dead, the plots
of members of families long gone not as important as that of the daughter a middle-aged
mother must bury. Even urns might get passed around a family, until the last
family member has a vast collection of them, and then they die, too. So, where
will my body wind up? Where will this empty bag of bones, this floppy sack of
dead weight, this collection of useless body parts finally settle?
We are all dying. Every day could very well be our last.
Usually, there is still so much to accomplish, so much to
see. There are more experiences to ensnare in the weak and flimsy grip that human memory provides. There is always more to suffer through and learn from. There is still so much World left to discover. But when it comes down to it, none of that will matter. At the end,
nothing matters.
Sometimes I welcome the reprieve with open arms.
