The Penultimate Spot in the Funeral Parlor

I've been thinking about death a lot lately. Not necessarily mine, but death--you know in general terms, as it applies to someone else. First, of course, is the lengthy illness, during which the condemned diminished before our  unbelieving eyes--and because we are in denial, we don't see this.  This is followed by more  than one precipitous slide. Now, the problem with that is that usually the condemned plateaus out, to which we become accustomed only to be shocked when it happens again., So, we accept as normal the final, ultimate, last, omega precipitous slide until we belatedly realize this its it, the big show, the whole enchilada, the final curtain, finis. Death catches us by surprise because we think that it's something that happens to other people.

We recently had a death in our family. A painful passing of a once vital someone who was ground down by disease. She lived a long life, as if that makes a difference. I resented it when well meaning people said about my own deceased father, "He lived a long life." Oh yeah? Says who? The prospect of becoming an orphan terrifies everyone regardless of age, and, usually, regardless of the kind of relationship we have with our families.

As an adult, I should, somehow, not have felt as deeply as I did that abandonment when my remaining parent died leaving me in the penultimate spot in the funeral parlor. But we are no longer someone's daughter (or son), there will never be another person who will love is (or at least like us a lot) regardless of what we have done, and there is no longer a home to accept us. We orphans are on our own. And, need I say it, in the penultimate spot in the funeral parlor.

Because I don't believe in a hereafter, I think when is over, we are over. If we're lucky someone will remember us. But it will be strange not to know. I can't imagine that but then I don't suppose when one is in the ultimate place in the funeral parlor one imagines anything.