A Question of Mortality

I was at a friend's memoriam the other day. It wasn't a run-of-the-mill memoriam. It was at a pub and if the pub had a pool table, it would have been perfect... "Jen would approve" was the general sentiment. Jen was a year older and had passed on, mercifully, in her sleep. She simply went to bed and never woke up. And i thought to myself, "She was very lucky" and silently hoped the same mercy to be shown to me when my number is up. Which is when? Anyone's guess... When was my last med check? Hmm... better get the house gate painted for ma...

Today, another "friend" had left our midst. I did not know Toni well and had only occasion to speak with her via email. I have never even met her. But we were connected by association through events and common friends. Contemporaries. Peers. One of us.

And really, this time, the issue of questioning one's mortality was more apparent than ever. At the pub-hurray in Jen's memory earlier, a friend made a passing remark about how we have crossed the threshold into another age; when younger, it seemed to be "old" people who passed on. Grandparents, Uncles and Aunts, grandparents of friends... it was Jen's passing that first brought on the dawn of a new age. One that saw us mourning our own peers. People we knew and we had contact with. People who touched our lives and made some kind of impact. It wasn't about their grandparents anymore. It was about they themselves. It was about us. And ultimately, it was about me. Amongst us.

And it was Toni's passing that brought on the reinforcement that it wasn't a fleeting thing. If mourning the death of each friend is to bring on an introspective reflection of sorts, we had better start getting used to it. It is as if crossing age 40 was a physical act of moving into a new era.

As a child, I never understood the concept of death. As a teen, I experienced for myself the pain of its loss when all four of my grandparents died in succession. In my twenties, death was real but it was far away. Going into thirties, I wondered why the older ones talked about death and always relished in its morbidity. Now at forty, I realise that it isn't about relishing, nor is it about morbidity. It is a means for us to deal with its reality and the relish is in what that self-reflection compels us to observe, do and think because of it.

My mortality is temporary. But morbid, it is not.