PERFECTION WASTED
And another regrettable thing about death
is the ceasing of your own brand of magic,
which took a whole life to develop and market -
the quips, the witticisms, the slant
adjusted to a few, those loved ones nearest
the lip of the stage, their soft faces blanched
in the footlight glow, their laughter close to tears,
their tears confused with their diamond earrings,
their warm pooled breath in and out with your heartbeat,
their response and your performance twinned.
The jokes over the phone. The memories packed
in the rapid-access file. The whole act.
Who will do it again? That's it: no one
imitators and descendants aren't the same.
- John Updike
" . . . when you die, you are grieved by all the atoms of which you were composed. They hung together for years, whether in sheets of skin or communities of spleen. With your death they do not die. Instead, they part ways, moving off in their separate directions, mourning the loss of a special time they shared together, haunted by the feeling that they were once playing parts in something larger than themselves, something that had its own life, something they can hardly put a finger on."
- David Eagleman
Sum
- David Eagleman
Sum
I don't know why I think so much about death. I don't want anyone I know to die and I'm not quite ready to die myself. Maybe because it's the ultimate mystery. I'm mightily curious about what happens when we die. When my brother was ill, death seemed a very real and close thing to me, as though I could sit down and have a conversation with it. When he actually died, it seemed so surreal that he could be present as a distinct personality one instant, and the very next instant be totally, irrevocably not present. Now that some time has passed, the immediacy and closeness of Death has passed and it's more of a concept than an actuality. I guess that's normal. But I still think about it.
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