Yesterday, when I stopped by the cemetary after a meeting to find my grandma's grave, which I haven't yet seen since she died (it'll be two years ago in January), I became frustrated initially because I couldn't find the damned thing. But then I thought, "what the hell. She's not here anyway. She lives inside me, because I am part of her...so, she is really with me. To search for her, I only need to look inside and be quiet."
What was buried in that coffin that cold day in January was just a symbol, something I recognized as my grandmother. But her essence: her memory, spirit, live on in me. In the ground I walked on yesterday, her body lay somewhere, decaying, in that blue dress she wore to my wedding, which she also wore to her own funeral. A bronze marker sits on the ground with her and my grandfather's names on it. Down the hill is a similar marker with the names of her mother and father.
While I was trapsing through the grass looking for the bronze markers of my family tree, the whole process seemed downright sick to me, to be walking over decaying bodies all lined up in a row. How morbid! And I thought, screw this! I'm going running! And I ran, and ran, and ran, thinking the whole time of my dead grandma and my own absolute fear of death.
What is it that scares me about dying?
It's turning into nothing, becoming a pile of stuff for someone else to root through. Really, all we are is stuff. When my grandmother died, my family couldn't believe the amount of stuff in her little apartment. And in the end, most of it went into the garbage.
Every month when we pay our mortgage...I think about this....think, "why?" Because this house is not really "ours" per se. It's the bank's. And even when/if we ever paid our house off and it was "ours," it would be turned over to someone else eventually anyway, to start all over in the economic cycle. Nothing is ours. All those things that mean so much to us in life, ultimately, mean nothing. The differences, the stressors, the deadlines, the arguments: none of it means a damned thing. The only thing that matters is leaving a legacy for younger generations of family, so I work hard at teaching my kids to fish, to play, to enjoy life. And I hope they remember this when I am dead.
To end suffering, end desire. To hold on to stuff is to suffer.
What was buried in that coffin that cold day in January was just a symbol, something I recognized as my grandmother. But her essence: her memory, spirit, live on in me. In the ground I walked on yesterday, her body lay somewhere, decaying, in that blue dress she wore to my wedding, which she also wore to her own funeral. A bronze marker sits on the ground with her and my grandfather's names on it. Down the hill is a similar marker with the names of her mother and father.
While I was trapsing through the grass looking for the bronze markers of my family tree, the whole process seemed downright sick to me, to be walking over decaying bodies all lined up in a row. How morbid! And I thought, screw this! I'm going running! And I ran, and ran, and ran, thinking the whole time of my dead grandma and my own absolute fear of death.
What is it that scares me about dying?
It's turning into nothing, becoming a pile of stuff for someone else to root through. Really, all we are is stuff. When my grandmother died, my family couldn't believe the amount of stuff in her little apartment. And in the end, most of it went into the garbage.
Every month when we pay our mortgage...I think about this....think, "why?" Because this house is not really "ours" per se. It's the bank's. And even when/if we ever paid our house off and it was "ours," it would be turned over to someone else eventually anyway, to start all over in the economic cycle. Nothing is ours. All those things that mean so much to us in life, ultimately, mean nothing. The differences, the stressors, the deadlines, the arguments: none of it means a damned thing. The only thing that matters is leaving a legacy for younger generations of family, so I work hard at teaching my kids to fish, to play, to enjoy life. And I hope they remember this when I am dead.
To end suffering, end desire. To hold on to stuff is to suffer.
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