It truly started on April 29, 2004, with the death of my grandfather, "Pépé" as we called him, French for grandpa. Right around the same time the family cat, given to my parents as a wedding gift from my godparents, died. I was shoved in the face of death.
It was not until around nine years later I began to realize how quickly everything that you loved and that you cared so much about could be tore from you so quickly. My godfather's father died of cancer, and I had the solemn pleasure of attending his wake and funeral. I saw what the desperate claws of death could do, but I did not fully understand it.
I didn't know my godfather's father at all. But everyone told me he was a loyal man with a sometimes prodigious temper. The hospital room had been ominous; suddenly, he wasn't talking.
Around the same time, within two months, one of my best friend's father died. He was so young. 56 years old at the time of death, November 14th, 2013. He is revolutionary around here; he brought IVF to our region, and become one of the most well known doctors in the area because of it. His family introduced me to a sport that I was committed to for quite a few years. He was a form of a teacher in that sport. I was over to their house many times, and I got to know him. I am so lucky to have met this kind, energetic, loving man.
When he died, my first selfish thought was, "I wonder if he ever thought about me." I don't know what sparked this thought. Perhaps I just wanted everyone to know that I knew him; that I knew this man who everyone exalted. I wanted him to think of me. I wanted him to wonder if all of his children's friends cared. But he was not like that.
Of all of her friends, I was the only one invited to the funeral. The wake had been open of course; the line to reach his casket weaving through row after row of chairs, and out the door. But the funeral was much more solemn, and the service, heavily Catholic and written by him in the months before his inevitable death, was around three and a half hours long. My family was brought downstairs following the service for a picnic of sorts. We enjoyed many cookies and fruits, and watched a slideshow of pictures consisting of him and his children - one showed me and him smiling at their house many years before he was diagnosed.
Death grabbed me, shooked me, and smiled in my face until I could see his evil eyes when I closed mine.
Then, a rush.
It was the tenth anniversary of my Pépé's death. My aunt's dog, the only dog I ever loved, Sadie, died to a heart tumor. My pastor's daughter died and everyone in the church felt it. It was the 50th anniversary of JFK's assassination. And, though I cannot remember it at this moment, there was another death. Death opened his mouth and showed his teeth, he breathed in my face. I felt his claws digging into my back.
Thus began the Dark Ages.
I questioned life; was it worth it? The Dark Ages began right around the time my friend's father died and stretched seemingly endlessly to only a few months ago. I hated going to school, something I enjoyed doing since my day of kindergarten, because going to school involved interaction with beings I called "lesser" sense they did not question life, purpose, and worth of individuals.
My big questions were, what happens when we die? What is life? How long can humans be? How big is space? When will everything die?
I fell into a depression I don't recall much about. I found that I was trying to figure out what it meant to be. I read books that others didn't understand the meaning of. I read them, over and over again, until I could recite the first chapter and a good portion of the second. I quoted it in conversations, dropping hints, hoping that one day someone would understand my references, and then we could speak about the book. To this day, Racing in the Rain by Garth Stein is my favorite book.
I cringed when people called my actions immature; I was not immature. I was curious, investigating, looking for answers to my big questions. I spent - and still do - a majority of my time on the computer, hunting, searching. I just need a lead. I want to figure out the secrets.
I learned. I learned so much I saw myself as much more mature than everyone else around me. I wanted to be mature. They already held me as intelligent; why did I need more? I figured if you paired mature and smart, you had the ultimate person. That's what I was going for.
No doubt I was much more mature coming out of my research than I was going in. I had ten times the manners anyone of double my age did. I volunteered constantly. I did whatever I could to show to others that I was loyal, trustworthy, and well-rounded. I lived for compliments; I did not show it.
But my life was still dark. I lacked friends at school. Someone who I had been friends with since first grade suddenly abandoned me. I met the girl I described in the post two days ago, a girl under the alias Elizabeth. She may have faulted that one time, but she almost always was there for me on other days.
She lead me out of the Dark Ages. In tomorrow's post I will describe how we met. She molded me. She's still molding me. My Dark Ages have come and gone. We will all have Dark Ages, when death confronts us. We will scare away death. We all can do it, we just have to be willing. Find a friend. Find a book. Find a hobby.
Find yourself.
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