my uncle... no... wait... my grandmother's brother,
so not my mother's brother -
ergo my grand-uncle died today at 3:15am...
i know so because my mother told me about it:
she was woken up by a "phantom":
i'm leaving now, i'm going to dance...
i prefer this explanation to any hardcore
material neo-atheism spew...
atheism just bores me...
if you haven't looked into any mysticism...
you will not find any mystical connection
with dead: i'm pretty sure everyone has some sort
of fetish for death - after all:
material-neo-atheism takes death too literally...
it's here one minute - gone the next...
yet it takes 9 months for the white tadpole
to form into a baby, 18 years to legally drink...
and 25 years for the brain to fully develop...
it's not a Thanos snap of the fingers... this thing
we call death... i'm sure there is a transition
period...
after all... it's sometimes hard to even
wake up properly - sometimes a dream will
try to keep you as you entertain closed-eyed
memory / imagination feedback loops -
never too sure whether awake or still dreaming...
he suffered his lot,
a one legged amputee...
i remember telling myself:
when i graduate from edinburgh with a degree
in chemistry (which i did) i will get a good
job (which i didn't) and buy my grand-uncle
a western style prosthetic limb that athletes use...
cancer - it's always with the cancer...
till the end of his life half of his face was missing
and he was spitting puss...
but... when my great-grandmother died...
my mother cried,
three days prior i saw her in a dream and she
was pointing at 3 o'clock... 3 days later old age
came - wise death - and off she went...
i ensured i gave a shy laugh at the funeral...
funerals are so surreal... there's no grand poetry
behind them to make of them something more...
the intimate family members were standing over
the grave with roses in their hands...
they threw them in prior to it being covered
with earth... i stood my ground...
they prompted me: Mateo, throw it in!
NO! i didn't... i later explained to them...
this is not a fucking Novermber Rain
Guns 'n' Roses music video... fuck off!
after the wake - we ate and drank whiskey
and none of us cried or had any memories to share...
her husband was the patriarch -
kept the family together - she was just a timid
creature - so no shared memories to begin
or end with... a timid church mouses...
she never drank coffee in her life,
she never drank alcohol, she never smoked...
but god did she love praying...
the family jokes was: that she prayed
enough prayers for all the prayers we wouldn't
utter...
after the wake i sat by myself
with a candle and the rose i didn't throw at
the burial... i don't know how...
but i managed to slightly burn the petals...
till the cardinal crimson turned to a bishop's purple...
and... i remember gnashing my teeth...
and then crying by myself...
gnashing with enough force to chip off
a bit of my tooth...
she did raise me... she was the one
with the picture bible and she did make the perfect
cup of tea...
i still remember her old home...
the coal stove... the smell of ferns and geraniums...
the creaking wooden floors...
she even had a hive of bees
in a wardrobe that she had on her balcony
where she kept pickled mushrooms, peppers
and gherkins... and the honey...
and they wouldn't even sting her...
but that's her...
with my grand-uncle?
her son?
i feel...
not exactly nothing... but it's a sense of
relief for him... or rather: to posit
a high-brow circumvent...
i only see a life: completed...
how? the cancer diagnosis came months ago...
everyone knew it was only a question of:
how long?
that infamous: not if, but when?
even he was gearing himself up to death...
after all: you don't won't to miss it,
since it happens only once...
but he left this world with a sense
of presence...
he said:
i just want to eat the local seasonal starwberries
one last time...
see... unlike most western countries...
certain foods are seasonal in certain parts of the world...
you can't go to the supermarket in autumn
and buy strawberries all year round...
if in England: from Spain, etc. -
the products are sourced locally -
so? you have a seasonal diet...
fruits in the summer, vegetables in the winter...
obviously apples / pears in autumn, yadda yadda yadda...
i already have my strawberry moment akin
to his... it came to my head when i was 21...
what will be the last song that i will hear?
it's quiet an indirect position to take...
strawberries are a certain given enough water
and then plenty of sunshine...
but... the last song?
eh... death...
you never really think about it
unless you think about it as a waiting line
of morality... or rather: life as a waiting line...
there is absolutely no insight into death
when someone famous days...
even if, say, a david bowie is dead...
you put on a record - say, the album heathen...
and - he's not dead...
not that i'm a big fan...
except for that album...
but on this level -
in this grey mass of the unamazing,
the down-trodden,
death becomes a certain
circumstance of liberty -
even if the atheists call it a theological
dictatorship... "he have us cancer" /
"he gave us heroin"...
you'll never know...
is living under democracy such a fucking
disney movie all of a sudden?
maybe - sometime in the future...
it's not exactly not a working progress...
i.e. which it is...
it's just sad to see how capitalism
misses its former ideological opponent...
at least communism kept capitalism in some
sort of sensible moral check...
communism fed capitalism some sort of ethics...
i still own a GAP shirt... made in Ireland /
Canada... and i will still own that shirt...
20 years from now... the quality of 20 years ago
is not the current quality of products...
just recently however many cars from Sveeden
(volvo) were recalled because they were
spontaneously burning up (the engines) -
because the Chinese decided to replace one part
with a cheap platic alternative...
not quiet the sort of communism espoused
by the Soviets
or the warsaw pact umbrella, is it?
ah, yes: there really is, always is -
the big picture to finish on.