A Reminder. Or What I Sound Like When Death Comes Too Close. Again.

Today’s post was supposed to be of a different flavor. But our house mouse died. Suddenly. I watched her die. Held her for a bit as I carried her to her paper fluff filled abode. The way she liked it. She died in there. It was sad, being so close to death even in gerbil size is terrifying. You forget that sharp sensation soon and move on, some will say, but it’s a sharp one. Watching death overcome life. Shiver. I know, death is part of life, I tell myself that too so often. I’ve been around death since I was six. You never get used to it. You hate it and stomp your feet in anger, squeeze your fists until the nails dig deep into your palms because you’re not allowed to cry – don’t ask, another story – then you give up hating it because what’s the point, there’s no coming back from where they went. As a kid, you simply hate death because it takes away grandparents you love so much. Then still a kid, you witness the toothless monster gobble up your pets too in a conspiracy to leave you exposed to emptiness. So you hate it again and then you move on.

I am not sure if I’ll ever make peace with death. I know I’m supposed to “get it” by now. The big circle of life, we could not have life if we didn’t have death, we’re all gonna end up there, blah blah blah. It scares me still. It saddens and angers me and when I grow up, if I ever do that, I will still love life infinitely much more and still sit on a mountain top up high and not let one death thought bother me.Not defeated, not mature about it either.

But as I’m thinking about my formerly alive mouse I can say that whether I grow up or not, the conclusion is but one. You know it as well as I do. And I stomp my feet in anger still. Will I ever “get it”?

PS: The reason I can’t look at River is not because I was too attached to that cute little mouse. I was, but that’s not it. It’s because of how death cruelly attached to me and my life lately through my mom’s passing and that is still an open wound.