In the sunset of dissolution, everything is illuminated by the aura of nostalgia, even the guillotine.
1. Thursday, July 19th. After work at around 7 p.m., with an empty stomach and an emptied out brain (and feelings) we made our way to visit our colleague's mother who was very, very ill. She was housed in an ICU room and only allows a maximum of five visitors, despite us being six persons. In the end, three of us including myself stayed outside, while the lesser rigid and more expressive emotional persons among us went in.
2. She was described in a rather pretty grave condition: starting with a stomach cancer, presumably, that spread to her liver and ultimately made her intestines impossible to process food and even suffocate other organs because it was filling up with liquid. The doctors had to operate her despite her not so best condition in order to prevent it, and resulted in her being too weak to even function, or so I was told. Her face was darkened, her eyelids half closed, no longer/barely responding except for small nods.
3. A few months ago I also visited the father of a friend of mine who was also dealing with an advanced stage of lungs cancer. I've met him several times before, and one look at him that night I immediately thought, he's not going to last long. Turns out it was his last day; he died the next morning.
4. I was really terrified today: part of me wanted to see her, how she was holding up, but part of me was terrified that I would find the exact sight, the otherworldly gaze that I found in my friend's father. Part of me is also still healing, from being somewhat attacked while watching Le scaphandre et le papillon a few days ago, and I guess I am constantly reminded of how much blessed, how I was spared.
5. In regards to the opening quotation from Milan Kundera, somehow I find an acute sense of peace, of being in a hospital environment. Of course, to be the visitor and to be the actual victim is almost completely different, with myself sometimes feeling like, perhaps being the sick one is better than the one who needs to do the tending to, the worrying of the sick. I, on the other hand, was always accompanied by silence: in the waiting room, during the process, inbetween, after. During the time I was always told, you have to change after this, this will alter you forever, and it often got me very worked out. I hate being conscious of how wrong you have been of being yourself the whole time you were yourself, and on the constant turmoil to change for the better, however elusive the word means.
6. Looking back now, I did actually change. I guess in a way I could never retell or paraphrase into writings, I have peeked inside my soul, conscience, being, and spoke with her silence (or perhaps, His). It is easier today to desensitize my vices, to silence my anxiety, and actively, consciously disassemble my somewhat toxic thoughts and counterproductive behavior, should I call it that. I've always lamented on how I desperately need a mute button for my brain, and lately I could spend minutes (not yet hours, but) in total silence both outside and inside, and in return am able to write more little writings than ever before (as I am doing now, if you can even call it a writing instead of snippets of an incomplete narrative).
7. Of course, it's easier for me to write because I'd only have the lesser hard-to-heal and the highest & longer chance of survival rate cancer, but it truly truly is a very discouraging, soul crushing disease. And the worse part is it doesn't only affect you during and after, but also those around you. A cancer is a cancer, it spreads. One look at my friend's father who was drained and so much stripped of himself that night and it almost broke me; I could only imagine how crushed my friend were. At his funeral I remembered my friend's brother talking about how grateful they were that his pain remained brief and he didn't last long, and indeed in a way he was right; he was no longer him.
8. To be alive now that I'm somewhat spared from that is indeed very humbling, but also heartbreaking sometimes. Your carnal being is never the same, and your life is divided into pre and post: it is inevitable. To think that I felt somewhat better before, and today I am constantly reminded of how wrecked I am, now that I survived the carcinogenic substance that was used to battle my cancerous self; it is a battlefield. My skin reeks of a blood storm, an arbitrary arrangement of red spots under my darkening flesh. Eyelids the permanent shade of purplish brown hue, a pair of hands that won't stop trembling, tiny earthquakes on every inch of surface.
9. I am still myself, that being said, and that's all that matter. I am myself. I will not die only because my flesh rots, as all flesh will someday. I have lived and (parts of) I will continue to do so so as long as my words are alive. In a way, my being lived or living doesn't really matter, and will not mattered, as by the time come I will be long gone from this world; wasn't made for this one anyway. I will be okay.
10. And this, is how I cope with my fear of death. I don't fear it so much as I fear of how I will go out, really.