In this sad world of ours sorrow comes to all, and to the young it comes with bittered agony because it takes them unawares. The older have learned to expect it.
ABRAHAM LINCOLN, letter to Fanny McCullough, Dec. 23, 1862
Tag: sorrow
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On the Occasion of My Death
With all the news this week about deaths, and supposed deaths, affecting people I know and love, and people I thought I knew, it got me wondering what it is that I would want people to realise on the occasion of my death. So this would be my eulogy to me:
Please remember that the tears you cry are tears for your own loss, and not for me. If you were thinking of me, you’d realise that happiness is called for, and not sadness. My struggles are finally over, and what lies ahead can only improve but never get worse. So if you grieve for me, know that you’re grieving in vain, because it is only good that is done in my memory that will benefit me, not time wasted grieving over something that cannot be undone.
I lived a life of seeming hardship, but in fact, there were many that were more downtrodden than me. Save your sympathy for those that are alive, and rejoice at the news that those that are dead suffer the anguish of this world no more. Do not commit acts of innovation in my name, nor commemorate the cycles of the years upon the anniversary of my death. I never recognised these superficial occasions in my lifetime, so please don’t dishonour me by commemorating it on my behalf after my demise.
Death has always been waiting, and relative to the expanse of eternity, our lives are literally a blink of an eye. Some blink longer than others, but nonetheless it is no more than a blink. Too many focus on the challenges and punishments that we’re cautioned about, but most never contemplate the blessings. Our challenges are limited to this finite time that we’ve been placed on earth, while our rewards are celebrated for eternity. So those that think that Allah is cruel or harsh in subjecting us to this life of trials and tribulations, let them be reminded that such hardships are short lived, whilst its rewards, if endured with dignity and faith, are eternal.
So please don’t mourn for me. Every tear you shed is a reflection of the compassion and yearning of your own soul before it is a symbol of what lies ahead for me. It is natural to grieve, but know without a doubt that that grieving is for your loss, not for my demise. Life is for the living, not for the dead. If you wish to benefit me at all, remember the good that I may have shared with you, forgive me for the bad, and always remember me fondly while overlooking my shortcomings.
Beyond this, I request nothing more from you. Like we have been reminded by the Prophet of Allah (SAW), speaking ill of the dead only affects the living, so don’t hurt those that may have held me endearingly in their hearts by reminding them of my faults. Celebrate life with goodness and cheat death by making such goodness the inheritance of your offspring.
“To Allah we belong, and unto him is our return”
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Sometimes my mind fades to a point where everything seems pointless…so much so that I eventually lose any inclination to want to do anything. It happened again today. While driving, I felt like taking my foot off the accelerator and just sitting back waiting for the car to eventually slow down and stop. Where it stopped, I didn’t care. If it moved, I didn’t care. If it crashed, I didn’t care. I simply didn’t care at all. But my niece was with me, so I’ll have to consider succumbing to those thoughts another time. Until then, the numb feeling of nothing will be nurtured until it overtakes me completely.
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Please hear what I am not saying…
Don’t be fooled by me. Don’t be fooled by the face I wear for I wear a mask, a thousand masks, masks that I’m afraid to take off, and none of them is me. Pretending is an art that’s second nature with me, but don’t be fooled, for God’s sake don’t be fooled.
I give you the impression that I’m secure, that all is sunny and unruffled with me, within as well as without, that confidence is my name and coolness my game, that the water’s calm and I’m in command and that I need no one, but don’t believe me.
My surface may seem smooth but my surface is my mask, ever-varying and ever-concealing. Beneath lies no complacence. Beneath lies confusion, and fear, and aloneness. But I hide this. I don’t want anybody to know it. I panic at the thought of my weakness exposed. That’s why I frantically create a mask to hide behind, a nonchalant sophisticated facade, to help me pretend, to shield me from the glance that knows.
But such a glance is precisely my salvation, my only hope, and I know it. That is, if it’s followed by acceptance, if it’s followed by love. It’s the only thing that can liberate me from myself, from my own self-built prison walls, from the barriers I so painstakingly erect. It’s the only thing that will assure me of what I can’t assure myself, that I’m really worth something.
But I don’t tell you this. I don’t dare to, I’m afraid to. I’m afraid your glance will not be followed by acceptance, will not be followed by love. I’m afraid you’ll think less of me, that you’ll laugh, and your laugh would kill me. I’m afraid that deep-down I’m nothing and that you will see this and reject me.
So I play my game, my desperate pretending game, with a facade of assurance without and a trembling child within. So begins the glittering but empty parade of masks, and my life becomes a front. I tell you everything that’s really nothing, and nothing of what’s everything, of what’s crying within me.
So when I’m going through my routine do not be fooled by what I’m saying. Please listen carefully and try to hear what I’m not saying, what I’d like to be able to say, what for survival I need to say, but what I can’t say.
I don’t like hiding. I don’t like playing superficial phony games. I want to stop playing them. I want to be genuine and spontaneous and me but you’ve got to help me. You’ve got to hold out your hand even when that’s the last thing I seem to want. Only you can wipe away from my eyes the blank stare of the breathing dead. Only you can call me into aliveness. Each time you’re kind, and gentle, and encouraging, each time you try to understand because you really care, my heart begins to grow wings— very small wings, very feeble wings, but wings!
With your power to touch me into feeling you can breathe life into me. I want you to know that. I want you to know how important you are to me, how you can be a creator, an honest-to-God creator, of the person that is me if you choose to.
You alone can break down the wall behind which I tremble, you alone can remove my mask, you alone can release me from my shadow-world of panic, from my lonely prison, if you choose to. Please choose to.
Do not pass me by. It will not be easy for you. A long conviction of worthlessness builds strong walls. The nearer you approach to me the blinder I may strike back. It’s irrational, but despite what the books say about man often I am irrational. I fight against the very thing I cry out for. But I am told that love is stronger than strong walls and in this lies my hope. Please try to beat down those walls with firm hands but with gentle hands for a child is very sensitive.
Who am I, you may wonder? I am someone you know very well. For I am every man you meet and I am every woman you meet.
~ Charles C. Finn
