I know, a lot of people will read the title and say to themselves, "Death has no meaning, it's just the ending of life." If that were true then I doubt we would be so afraid of death or mourn those who passed. Death has a meaning, the question is, what?
To each person death will mean something different. I remember the first time death left a bitter, bloody taste in my mouth. It was when I learned my sister had died. Death walked up to me, I was just a child at the time, and slapped me so hard across the face that my head was spinning for weeks. Not long after I lost two more relatives, and with each backhanded slap death hit me with my face stung as hard as the last. I wanted to crawl into the bathtub, curl into a ball, and destroy myself in the darkness. The pain of losing someone is, for the living, the hardest part of death.
As a horror writer I think about death often, maybe more than the normal person. I think of how it might feel to be stabbed, shot, garroted, set on fire, decapitated, drowned, and well you dear reader get the picture. I think about how one feels when they walk into a crime seen and see their family member, friend, lover, or just the victim, dead. I think about the pain that might cause one to seek revenge. I think about the life one might lead after losing someone. I think about death often.
Some of you will never get over the death of someone, maybe that person meant the world to you and you can't fathom life without them, maybe that person was someone who caused you pain and you wanted them to suffer more than they did, whatever the reason, you hold on. You hold on to the memory, you hold on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, someone got it wrong and that person isn't dead. There might not be closure. You might not get to see the body of the deceased. You might never really even get the relief of knowing, 100%, that the person you are missing is dead.
Maybe, possibly, the meaning of death is the meaning of life. Death might just be a tool, put in place to make you appreciate what you have. Everyone knows death exists, maybe the meaning of death is just living. Weird right?
Of course, I, a poor writer living in a southern town, trying to find my place in a new environment, I don't have the answer. I know one day death will come for me, I'm not sure I'll ever be ready. As I think back, and as tears tremble in my eyes, I know I will always miss those who have passed, and I hate to think about those who I am going to lose.
For me, death just means focus on life. Then again, death also means a paycheck if I twist it around enough to get you, the reader, to but into what I'm selling.
To each person death will mean something different. I remember the first time death left a bitter, bloody taste in my mouth. It was when I learned my sister had died. Death walked up to me, I was just a child at the time, and slapped me so hard across the face that my head was spinning for weeks. Not long after I lost two more relatives, and with each backhanded slap death hit me with my face stung as hard as the last. I wanted to crawl into the bathtub, curl into a ball, and destroy myself in the darkness. The pain of losing someone is, for the living, the hardest part of death.
As a horror writer I think about death often, maybe more than the normal person. I think of how it might feel to be stabbed, shot, garroted, set on fire, decapitated, drowned, and well you dear reader get the picture. I think about how one feels when they walk into a crime seen and see their family member, friend, lover, or just the victim, dead. I think about the pain that might cause one to seek revenge. I think about the life one might lead after losing someone. I think about death often.
Some of you will never get over the death of someone, maybe that person meant the world to you and you can't fathom life without them, maybe that person was someone who caused you pain and you wanted them to suffer more than they did, whatever the reason, you hold on. You hold on to the memory, you hold on to the hope that maybe, just maybe, someone got it wrong and that person isn't dead. There might not be closure. You might not get to see the body of the deceased. You might never really even get the relief of knowing, 100%, that the person you are missing is dead.
Maybe, possibly, the meaning of death is the meaning of life. Death might just be a tool, put in place to make you appreciate what you have. Everyone knows death exists, maybe the meaning of death is just living. Weird right?
Of course, I, a poor writer living in a southern town, trying to find my place in a new environment, I don't have the answer. I know one day death will come for me, I'm not sure I'll ever be ready. As I think back, and as tears tremble in my eyes, I know I will always miss those who have passed, and I hate to think about those who I am going to lose.
For me, death just means focus on life. Then again, death also means a paycheck if I twist it around enough to get you, the reader, to but into what I'm selling.
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