To a Pile of Stones

<Sigh.>

Hold on . . . let me do that again.

<Sigh.>

The dead don't love. They can't say "I love you." And, conversely, the living can no more say "I love you" to the dead than they can to a pile of stones. Well, the living can say it, but the words just won't be heard. The window of opportunity to show our love is lost when someone dies, a bridge has been permanently destroyed. There is nothing anyone can do to rebuild that bridge; a structure once made of bones and a beating heart is thusly reduced to dust and wafer-thin scabs, which are hardly the building blocks necessary to say "I love you."

I've definitely said this before. Those of you who've read my work know how I hold onto these notions - like badges of unfettered wisdom, like a warm blanket of truth, like a harbinger of reckoning. Death sure is an attention-getter. It gives rise to a trauma indiscriminate and relentless. There is no going back. Dead is dead.

I state the obvious.

"Death is the gate to life."

But, if you will, stay with me a few moments longer to consider the notions of death among the living, among those who wish to love.

To begin, please imagine death as indiscriminate and random - as death truly is. I do this daily in varying degrees. Sometimes, I think about it too much. Sometimes, I don't think about it enough. I think of a devastating crash on my bike. I ponder the sudden diagnosis of cancer. I wonder what would have happened if I hadn't been as lucky as I was when I had brain surgery several years ago. I consider stray bullets (or ones not so stray) and knives jammed between my ribs. I think of accidental decapitation. I think of purposeful decapitation. Poisonings. Heart attacks. Lion attacks. The list of ways to die is endless. In my mind, I watch myself die every day . . . and I do it to stay in check.

These awful imaginings bring me closer to love.

I've been having a lot of nightmares lately. Sleep comes and goes as it pleases, sometimes leaving me as a zombie tottering through my day. The violent dreams are of maiming and death. People get their arms cut off. Others break their necks. I wake up feeling awful, but . . . again . . . these visions bring me closer to love. As I've said many times before, they offer perspective.

Very simply stated:  if I think about death enough, then I'm more likely to act with kindness and compassion. If I consider my mortality, then I won't waste a single second of life, seconds which are - in my opinion - best spent on loving. And, for me, this works well, but it may not be the same for others. The possibility of death drives me to say, "I love you." I should be clear, however, and say that I believe this is not the only stem from which love grows; sometimes love grows from love, sometimes I simply feel love and I therefore exhibit it. It doesn't always come from death. Death is a sort of "gentle" reminder . . . to love.

This thinking isn't foolproof though. I mess it up often. I forget the perspective of mortality and I say and do things that are quite the opposite of care and compassion. In situations such as this my brain is a novice, careening on the edge of a razor blade, which is careening on the edge of any number of blood vessels in my wrist. It is destructive to myself and others for me to forget the perspective of death, to forget how this permanent calamity can be a call to greatness.

<Sigh.>

And through this perspective I rarely find myself holding grudges. From such I am able to push past negative feelings quickly, yet I'm still not fast enough! I have so much work to do. My thoughts are wrought with flaws. There are many people better at this than me. I call upon these folks to keep me in their bosom until I may one day employ love thoroughly and with continual, unwavering grace. I may never get there. I probably won't.

I'll just die trying, and with that death I'll get closer to love.

<Sigh.>

So, I implore you - show compassion before it's too late, before you're saying "I love you" to a pile of stones.