I just found out about the death of a former flatmate from brain cancer. He was a lovely person: full of fun, humour, energy. I didn't live with him for long, but he made a lasting impression on me. Having given up on his first choice of career as an actor he was just starting to retrain as a drama teacher. He was incredibly enthusiastic about teaching and desperate to get stuck in. As someone who'd love to teach state school but doesn't quite dare, I was inspired by his boldness and enthusiasm. Sadly, his teaching career was cut short by a malignant tumour, and the kids of Stoke Newington are worse off as a result.
Sitting just now with my 98-year old grandmother, who clings to life like a moss clings to stone, I was filled with conflicting emotions: a kind of blank numbness that has been growing over the past year as people I love have died or been felled by depression, contrasted with a raging fury at the unbearable pointlessness of human existence. I want to lash out and punch someone in the face, scratch out eyes and twist necks till they snap, but I can hardly be bothered to get up out of my chair.
More and more I come to loathe those who dole out meaningless platitudes: 'what will be will be', 'it's all part of the plan', 'it's in the hands of fate'. On its own, life is utterly meaningless - it's up to us to shape it, give it direction, make it mean something... anything.
He was a handsome man, too, and if he hadn't had a girlfriend, and I hadn't been distracted by some ridiculous musician, I'd have risked making a pass at him. Just yesterday, even, I'd suddenly remembered him and wondered what would have happened if I'd tried. I guess at the back of my mind I'd thought maybe we'd meet at a party one day and I'd have another chance. It hardly felt very urgent. I thought that time was on my side. As usual, I was wrong.
Revealed! The Book Jacket for Happier At Home.
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7 comments:
words appear shallow
though the well is deep
thank you
for being well
I have seen my father, mother-in-law and friend die from cancer. I am currently undergoing treatment myself having kicked it's butt (thank God), I "get" your anger and sadness and I am sorry about your friend...
Right there with you on these issues. I've lost so many friends and family members I have to sit down to make a list to count them, but they're all still in my head and heart.
I've had those slipped moments like the one you describe — in a strangely similar case, I Googled a man I'd flirted with ten years before and found out he was two years dead of brain cancer. It left this strange, yawing gap that I couldn't quite put a name to. And in January of 2006, a friend with whom I'd been lovers died suddenly while cycling (a tree crushed him) and I felt bits of me rip out and burn for more than a year afterward. Everything smolders still.
Death is a bullshit, horrible, sarcastic sonofabitch and I refuse to believe there is much meaning in it beyond the fact that we are animals, and we die (I suppose you could argue for exceptions, like organ donation). But life, as you note, while (IMO) it has no inherent meaning, has more possibilities.
Thanks, lovely people. I feel like I ought to be out somewhere, dancing and shouting and starting fights, but I'm tired and its easier to just sit and listen to the wind.
It is always nice to be reminded that I'm not alone.
I'll miss him too. The first time we met, we went on a rollercoaster together (on a school trip). He was a good guy and a great teacher.
I didn't know he was your flatmate, though.
If it makes you feel any better, I often feel the same way, but struggle to articulate it as clearly as you.
LC: But you are mega-articulate. Would be good to see you turn your attentions away from coleslaw and towards existential crises. Maybe start with a coleslaw-related existential crisis?
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