I know someone who died yesterday. He was the husband of a friend and mentor of mine. Last year, she would tell me about their vacation together; and now, he's gone.
It's palpable. We're cursed by a sense of invincibility, forgetting how easy it is to fall prey to the vicissitudes and misfortunes that asphyxiate us. I am one of those people, wasting a wealth of moments in triteness and petty miseries.
I was sitting on a stained, dark green futon in Flushing, Queens when I found out. Vin and I were watching House of Cards and eating naan and Valentine's day cookies. My hair was (still is) greasy, I was (still am) wearing my glasses and male athletic shorts, and I was licking spilled palak paneer off my left thigh (that's a truth). The world had slowed, and it was just the two of us, comfortably smelly and content, needing nothing and no one else.
And then I happened to glance at my email.
I felt a nauseating, tangible loss, a vacuity I could not fill with a few tears or phone calls to my mother. Dead is final. There's no way to backspace, erase, stop recording. It's the finality of the decision that shocks the core, and it is this troubling irreversibleness, one over which we have no control, that compels people to look for hope in God or heaven or whatever illusion can offer comfort in the face of such a stubborn conclusion.
It is moments like the one on that forest green futon that I would miss the most. Unassuming, unplanned, unpretentious moments that I forget to acknowledge, forget to cherish. It is a moment like this that my friend will never again have with her companion.
In a few weeks, when the sadness and shock subside, and I may resume my concerns about quotidian angers and insecurities. Today, however, I am still. I am quiet, and I am absolutely still.
After some tears, I washed my face, sat on the couch, and gave Vin a hug. I love spending time in Flushing. I just don't do it enough.
It's palpable. We're cursed by a sense of invincibility, forgetting how easy it is to fall prey to the vicissitudes and misfortunes that asphyxiate us. I am one of those people, wasting a wealth of moments in triteness and petty miseries.
I was sitting on a stained, dark green futon in Flushing, Queens when I found out. Vin and I were watching House of Cards and eating naan and Valentine's day cookies. My hair was (still is) greasy, I was (still am) wearing my glasses and male athletic shorts, and I was licking spilled palak paneer off my left thigh (that's a truth). The world had slowed, and it was just the two of us, comfortably smelly and content, needing nothing and no one else.
And then I happened to glance at my email.
I felt a nauseating, tangible loss, a vacuity I could not fill with a few tears or phone calls to my mother. Dead is final. There's no way to backspace, erase, stop recording. It's the finality of the decision that shocks the core, and it is this troubling irreversibleness, one over which we have no control, that compels people to look for hope in God or heaven or whatever illusion can offer comfort in the face of such a stubborn conclusion.
It is moments like the one on that forest green futon that I would miss the most. Unassuming, unplanned, unpretentious moments that I forget to acknowledge, forget to cherish. It is a moment like this that my friend will never again have with her companion.
In a few weeks, when the sadness and shock subside, and I may resume my concerns about quotidian angers and insecurities. Today, however, I am still. I am quiet, and I am absolutely still.
After some tears, I washed my face, sat on the couch, and gave Vin a hug. I love spending time in Flushing. I just don't do it enough.
