Passages
When my time comes
Forget the wrong that I’ve done
Help me leave behind some
Reasons to be missed
And don’t resent me
And when you’re feeling empty
Keep me in your memory
Leave out all the rest
(Linkin Park)
I haven’t really lost anyone super close to me. My grandfather, yes, but I was 15 years old. Too young to really appreciate what a great man he was, and what I’d lost. It’s only now, as an adult, that I realize that. Especially last year, when I went to Ireland. I wish I could have shared that experience with him. It was his homeland, after all, and he was the reason I went there in the first place.
This past Tuesday, the mother of one of my best friends died. She was very ill, for a very long time, so it wasn’t really a huge surprise, but still. It’s been strange. I’ve always been quite sensitive. So these things tend to tear me up a bit, even though it doesn’t directly affect me. I guess I just feel for my friends. It’s strange, because another of my very close friends mother passed away some years back. It was very, very fast. This time it was long and drawn out and horrible. Neither experience seems any easier.
I feel melancholy, and a little lost. I want to be there for my friend, and I am. But we all know that the days immediately following a death are insane and busy and crazy. She doesn’t really need me right now. I’m sure she will in the future though, and I’ll be there.
And of course these kinds of situations make you examine your own life, in ways that aren’t always comfortable. It’s so strange and indescribable. I find myself tearing up at times, and it probably seems strange to people. It’s a little weird to be so emotionally…sympathetic.
And it came to me then that every plan
Is a tiny prayer to father time
As I stared at my shoes in the ICU
That reeked of piss and 409
And I rationed my breaths as I said to myself
That I’ve already taken too much today
As each descending peak on the LCD
Took you a little farther away from me
Away from me
Amongst the vending machines and year-old magazines
In a place where we only say goodbye
It stung like a violent wind that our memories depend
On a faulty camera in our minds
And I knew that you were a truth I would rather lose
Than to have never lain beside at all
And I looked around at all the eyes on the ground
As the TV entertained itself
‘Cause there’s no comfort in the waiting room
Just nervous faces bracing for bad news
And then the nurse comes ‘round and everyone lift their heads
But I’m thinking of what Sarah said
That love is watching someone die
So who’s gonna watch you die? So whos gonna watch you die?
(Death Cab For Cutie)