Dating : The Emptiness of Words, pt 8

Part 8 of 10

Death happens to all of us. Quietly and in an unspoken way, all of us know we are going to die. To most, it happens in a natural order. Grandparents and then parents and then you. To more than than we can ever imagine, this is not the case. We all know this because we hear stories of tragedy from friends, read stories on the Internet, or watch a television show and pretend. Those stories are other people’s stories or made-up stories. So when this happens in real life, and then happens to us, and that natural order is broken, it strikes so very hard. Such a blow is not even comprehensible. Then talking about this moment of terror afterwards or writing about it sometimes makes the pain even worse. Because if it could happen to them, it could happen to us. It touched them, is it contagious? So we don’t talk about it and we don’t share our horror with the next person. We knock on wood and try to drown out the evil spirits lurking nearby and listening. Discussing this pain is almost reliving it. It is almost too much. To try to translate that emotion and terror and horror into words…well, it’s just easier to suppress and forget — even if we know that we can never forget. Because the colors of pain from such moments are blinding and to find those colors and turn them into words, those chosen words, they just might kill us.