Oh life.
Weird thing...
out of the blue last night I get a call from one of my bestfriends to tell me her dad had just died. There's four of us who are practically familt and within 20 minutes we were all there, but I mean...it really makes you realize how quickly things change whether you're ready for it or not. When we got to her house her dad had already been offically announced as dead but the coroner didnt arrive until 2 hours later....and just being in that atmosphere really made me think about alot of things. That could have easily been my family, or any one of my friends, and i really don't think I could be as strong as she is being right now. Losing a parent when your 16...i mean she doesnt even turn 17 until February...what are you supposed to do? Dancing is our lives and we have a big show coming up next week...this will be the first show he's every missed. Our grad, her wedding....it just breaks my heart. My first funeral here I come on Monday. Life is so random...I know there's a reason for everything, it's just accepting that fact that's the hard part.
posted by &Jasmine @ 9:00 PM
13 Comments:
Oh...there are seriously no words to express feelings like that when I think about it. I never know how to react when I hear about that. Because it's just so painful for even those who don't know what happened, who the people are, or anything, but it's a death and we still feel it within ourselve. But we can't express it. We can say we're sorry and oh my god and that's terrible...but none of those things really mean exactly what you feel. Last year in February, well, technically, this year's February, I was still diving and two of my friends are sibling, a brother and a sister. They found out that their aunt was very sick and they'd leave practice early to go see her and it just caused a lot of grief. Especially the brother. He's usually a strong person, but he'd have to suddenly go to the washroom to just stand for a while and get his emotions in order. But no one ever thought she'd actually die. At least, we all denied it. Because it couldn't happen to us. Or hit so close to home. Yeah, it coulda been anyone we knew directly. Not a friend's aunt that you never met. And I knew their mom very well. It was her sister. When I heard the news...the best I could come up to say was, "That's awful." Well yes, it's awful, but what do you say? How do you console someone? Because I really don't know how it feels to have someone close to me die. I can't tell them I know how they feel when I don't. I can't tell them it'll be alright when I don't know. I can't say anything. That day, they weren't at practice. But they came back the next day rather than stay home. I think we need to interact with other people in these times to know that the world is still moving and not to let yourself get stuck in a groove full of grief where you can't move forward anymore. And the world leaves you behind. So they came back because they had to. Now they are no longer grieving. At least, not publicly. But I'm sure something like that doesn't leave you. It is awful, but...I don't know how to express my feelings without insulting them, or coming off short as to what I mean, or how I feel, or just saying something wrong. I don't know what right is so technically, I guess I can't say something wrong. But then, there are just somethings that aren't right but you don't know. I don't know how people will react to what I say and that limits me to something generic and cliche like "That's awful." What else do you say? What do you do?
We're reading Rain in some of the classes here and the other day I asked the kids to talk about where they think we go when we die and one student said "nowhere because after life there is nothing." I think she thought that would be the end of the subject, but then I asked her what nothing meant and what nothingness is, and the subject became much more complex. I spelled out "nothing" on the board and showed her how the word actually spells "no thing" which is much more intuitive than the french word "rien" but still doesn't answer much.
It occurred to me then that this is probably the most difficult aspect of death... the idea of no longer having anything -- a body, a life, thoughts, emotions, sensations... How do you describe nothing and does it even exist? Even in the tiniest particles there are protons and electrons and even in the centers of black holes there are stars...
Thats the hardest part for her to grasp right now...he's not here, there's really no physical part of him left. No words, not even a breath...but in realting that too stars the 4 of us decided to take her to the legisltaure on friday night with hot choclate and just sit there and talk because the stars there are amazing and she really needs some girl time out. Im finding that she finds her comfort in us which makes me feel alot better because just being surrounded by ones she loves and away from home takes her out of rality in away but we're all still an outlet for her to grieve. There's nothing you can do or say to make the pain stop or being them back all we can do is be there for the person and try to grow and learn out of the situation.
how did the classes like rain?
Are they reading canadian rain or american rain?
Jasmine, your friend is really lucky to have you for a friend. I'm sure you're helping her more than you can imagine.
What's the legislature and what's it like? I'm imagining the lawn of a government building on a hill looking out over the ravine...
Danny, there's only one rain because canadian rain is this. stars. but one class has been reading the comments you guys left on the "dying star" post and they've been coming up with their own ideas and will post them hopefully next week. so keep checking that post. they have some great ideas, and limited words to express them with.
oh OH! I don't know what I was thinking. Duh, the blog is called the smell of canadian rain.
So the legislature has to be one of the most beautiful places in our city in my opinion. Its actually the legislative building (which is pretty much an architectual masterpeice) with stairs that lead down to a large standing pool(in summer). The pool is quite shallow but when you go there at night, you can sit on the steps and see the stars reflected in the water. A little further down there's a really big fountain that just creates the most relaxing noise. sometimes if it's clear enough it looks like you could almost walk on the water. Sometimes I go there when its super late and there arent even any cars around to make a sound. It's a really good place to reflect(no pun intended) and just think. I just think that the water standing still seems to just wait for you to disturb it. Because when you do, if you were to touch the surface, it sends a ripple all the way across the pool. I can never actually bring myself to touch it though. It might sound crazy, but I look at it and sometimes feel like if I were submerged in it, that I wouldnt get wet at all. That it might lead to somewhere else. Maybe one day I'll jump in fully clothed. But only when I'm ready
beautiful description, nathan. thanks so much for this. now i have this great image in my mind of it. i love that the stars are reflected in the still pool there and that you feel that if you were to swim in them you wouldn't get wet. ooh! i think i just figured out part of a dream i had the other night (after first reading your post)... when i woke up i said the words "windows in sea" but i also thought that it could be "windows in c" as in a chord. as in the music of the spheres... it's as though that water was a window to the sea of the sky as well as a window to the music of the stars. this pool needs to be in the play. as does the legislature. i'll try to work it in.
it sounds like a popular place... are there often other people there at night? do you ever run into friends there or people on dates or some else soaking up the quiet and reflecting on the reflection of the stars? i wonder what it would have been like if you had gone there at the same time as Jasmine and her friends... hmmm.
another random idea... what if rainboy would have never met poet... what if instead of Jasmine's friend's father dying and them being at the Legislature it was Sam and Justin and Noelle there... i think i'll write that scene now just to see how it goes. i like how this makes Stars almost a paralell universe of Rain... which I guess it actually is...
Jasmine, I'm just re-reading my last comment and it seems really cold. I don't mean to compare your friend losing her father to Rainboy, a fictional character dying... I'm just constantly trying to knit everyone here's life experiences together to create something meaningful and full of life for you. And it seems that a friend dealing with death makes sense in the play now because of your experience.
Could you help me write it well and tell me what it was like sitting there with her that night... what kinds of things you talked about, what you were thinking about, how it would have felt if someone you didn't know came down and started talking to you?
Also, how is your friend doing? How are you after having this changed your life?
no worries I didnt take offence to it lol. Um...well to start she's handleing it pretty well. But she hides it we all know she does...she doesnt like to talk about it much and when we do we usually talk about the good time. It still doesn't seem real so I think she's still adjusting. Being there that night honestly helped her so much. She thanked us over an dover mostly because we didnt so much need to talk becuase just being all together in such a hope filled place..we all just understood eachother without having to say a word.
Well we talked about lots of things...christmas...love (like all girls)...food haha anything to keep a smile on her face but the only really serious moment we had was just being with eachtoher. Its really hard to explain we all just found a common ground and it was like we were one person. We didnt need to talk becuase we were all feeling the same thing and having that much trust and comfort in a group of friends is the best feeling in the world.
It's changed me alot. Recently i've been writing alot lately and basically questioning life and humankind. I mean..I hate knowing just how life works but at the same time knwoing its far to complicated for me to understand. And does the heart and mind really understand something...or simply accept it becuase it needs to be that way and move on? To be honest I have never more in my life had so many unanswerbale questions....but its made me realize that whenever something goes wrong things really can get worse and that im more then lucky to have my life how it is. The only real thing that gets too me though is that I know the human mind will never fully be able to grasp the depth that life has within it's self.
I guess all we can do is try to grasp as much as we can... and maybe that's a good thing. Maybe we'd just combust if we understood it all. Or worse, maybe there wouldn't be anything left to live for. Maybe once we figured out the great mystery life just wouldn't be important anymore...
It's beautiful how you described you and your friends all becoming one person for a moment. I totally know what you mean.
I'm almost finished with a first stab at this scene. I'll post it here soon.
tha's true...I never thought of that, there really would be no mystery left in the world if we understood it all. I just think it's interesting how every person has a different view of one place.
I cant wait to read the scene.
Post a Comment
<< Home