Again Thinking

We don't usually bother too much with it but death touches all of us sooner or later. The death of someone close can be devastating if one is caught unprepared. But how does one prepare for loss and the grieving that follows? The death of my mother was something I had long prepared for. She was after all past 80 and her health had deteriorated. But when it happened it was still a shock. The five thousand year old death rites I performed with my brothers and sisters brought the necessary distancing between raw emotion and a controlled grief, but has not dimmed the sadness.

Humans have since earliest times invoked the continuation of the spirit in another realm. Protected and cherished if one had been good, persecuted and tortured otherwise. Belief in continuity eased the pain and if one believed in reincarnation the cyclic nature of life made loss less finite. Animistic beliefs gave way, became religions.

Religion was and still is a primary concern of humans, though the differences between religions and their followers have resulted in injustices, wars and suffering and death and is a factor even now with calls for holy wars and talk of axis of evil.

Religious rites are sold as the correct way to do things and have normally to be interpreted by special individuals who have been instructed - priests. Since time immemorial the priestly class has exercised a certain control over death and its rites and in doing so exercised real political power.
This I had realized early in life but had forgotten, putting death and its rites away to study, work and raise a family. But one cannot really escape death; it comes at you from the front pages, the news bulletins and the passing of loved ones.

All one can do is try to understand and hope. Or else mock the sour poet:

from sadness unending

because death is around some corner
we walk in avenues of love
defying idols cast in our image
challenging the voices of the sea
mocking the sour poet
walking alone in his mind
singing of death to himself
gathering dew in his night eyes
aware that no morning sun
will dry the tears of the dead
or the dying.




stanza 3, sadness unending
Commentary Vol 4, No. 2
University of Singapore Society, 1980