These small hours.

At the beginning of the holidays, we were asked to think about death; what we think will happen and what we want to happen. Death has affected me in this holiday in different ways; my brother was recently taken to the doctors and told he had a virus; rest, fluids and all that. Last night, after hearing much hushed talking from the lounge accompanied by my mums panicked voice; which, to be honest, isn’t all that rare. He wandered into my room, pushing his back towards me asking me to look at it; what appeared to be a red rash had formed over his right shoulder blade, my sister followed him in mouthing to me that they thought he may have meningitis and were taking him to the hospital. After they left, my sister put on a movie for us about hockey; hockey is my favourite sport and I can’t watch enough of it, so I even surprised myself when I found I wasn’t watching, but staring through the TV or looking to the door. Luckily for all of us, it was merely a scare, where he had been coughing so much he had strained some blood vessels in his back creating the appearance of a rash. The relief I felt to have him home with us safe was unbelievable, up until this point I had never really understood the saying, you don’t appreciate something until it’s gone; of course, I understand what it’s trying to say, but I feel it’s something you have to experience, like how people always talk of love and say that if you aren’t sure if it was love then it wasn’t or something like that, I think it’s the same basic principle. My brother and I, like most other siblings, fight like cats and dogs, in our family this is something particular to me and him; him and my sister get along like a house on fire; when they came home he bundled himself close to me on the sofa and I revelled in having that time with him, it was like getting another chance and we chatted and laughed over the movie much to the disapproval of my sister.

Others, however, are not so lucky; at the same time I was laughing with my brother, calmed and reassured by his safety, another boy was fighting to survive. Today, we were told that a friend of ours had died; a boy my sister had known since she was five; we’d stayed close over the years, my mother and his were good friends also, her two daughters were around my age and in the summer we would travel up there to go to the pub and have lunch together. For me, this is the first person that I knew relatively well to have died; I’m lucky enough to have all of my grandparents still living and well, so this was almost earth-shattering. I couldn’t comprehend how the boy who I had, just a few short years ago, played on the star wars game with and watched TV with was gone, he was just a kid.

For whatever cosmic reason there is for existence, I don’t understand it. At this moment in time, I am an agnostic, unsure whether or not to believe in a higher power; not to say that I will do the same as any person who has lost someone and ask this higher power “Well, if you exist, why did you take so-and-so from us? You obviously don’t exist.” That isn’t how it works. I think there are things we can’t explain, perhaps it’s the brain slipping up or maybe its true, for now I don’t know; I don’t know if I believe in ghosts or past lives yet. Personally, I would whole-heartedly love to believe there was a higher power, what a relief that would be. But that is my point; relief; is there any other reason, but the fear of death and to explain the (rapidly decreasing) unexplainable? I am so afraid of death. This is probably one of the first times I have admitted it, but today, with all that has happened, I want to be honest. I think about death at least once a day; I think I have done since I was about ten years old; I used to sleep in the car merely because if we had a crash, at least I would die in my sleep, how I wanted. I know I do it, and probably, unwittingly let it control my life. People don’t want to think about it, we are afraid of the unknown and death is the king of the unknown; it is scarier as it is the one thing in life that not one of us can change or avoid. I hope that one day I can be okay with it, I would love to get tired of it and be able to say genuinely, as my grandmother does “I never want to get THAT old! Hope I go before then..” While laughing and nudging my grandchildren in the side…But, for now, I guess I’m just not that brave. And I think a lot of people would be the same.