Transiency of a snowflake
Lost in thought I sit at the window, the rain pelting down from overlapping grey clouds. „Can it not snow white snowflakes?“; I’m thinking „Will I ever see snow again?“ Tear fluid’s rising in my eyes. In the past I was not interested in this, because snow was just cold and connected with mud. But just at this moment, when the clouds are dripping, would I like to put a plug between them. I would like to laying down in a blanket of snow and feel this paradox of living dead cold. Want to feel this foretaste of death, after all, life is fleeting.
At the age of fifteen I visited my grandmother in a nursing home. She had dementia and that in an advanced stage. She didn’t recognize anyone, probably not even herself anymore. The veil of not knowing had spread completely over her. I stood at the door of her room and looked at her. She was emaciated and her wrinkled skin was pale. A sister combed her snow-white hair like a little girl. She was a beautiful woman and survived two world wars. How I would have liked to have asked her about the past. I’d like to know more. But now it was too late! Standing rigid in the door frame, I saw the transient life. Our looks met and in her face I saw almost perfect emptiness. Has her soul already dissolved and is her body only the protection of her last soul part? ` I wondered. Salvation to Nirvana. My eyes were on her. Grief and hope were reflected. Her posture was curved, her eyes rigid and infinite, like a universe in darkness. A thousand trains of thought formed in my head, I could not structure them. „Are you scared?“; I had like to ask. She’d have said, „Oh, girl, what am I supposed to be afraid of?“; But she sat across from me like a clumsy child in the body of an old woman. She was helpless. Tears shot in my eyes and I had to get some fresh air. It was the last time I saw her.
Now shall I die too? The doctor must have wondered a lot about my reaction, which in this moment I grinned to life in the face or rather death. Everything seemed so surreal to me. I imagined my death sentence differently, instead of a black Grim Reaper I was informed about my state of health by a doctor dressed in white and this was devastating. For some time now I had the feeling that something was wrong with me. I was losing more and more weight even though I ate more. Was often very tired, but I could not sleep and when I slept then very restless. But the most frightening was the increased nosebleeds and secondary bleeding. After I had left the doctor’s room a thousand questions went through my mind and again it was completely empty. People walked past me, I only perceived them subconsciously. It seemed to me that I was walking through a tunnel with living pictures. Towards the white light. How should I go on living the short time? Should I tell friends and family? How do you tell a man you have to die? Is there a manual?
I couldn’t find a manual on the big World Wide Web and finally there is a manual for every garbage. But not for dying. I didn’t want to push myself into the center and yet I wanted to spend a lot of time with the people I like. Furthermore, I wanted to do things I liked without having to feel the rickety old dark one in my neck. But now he was the shadow of myself. I feel like people can see him sometimes. I’ve noticed horrified looks from strangers. Of course, I am getting paler and paler and my skin is transparent, but I am still alive and have not lost the pleasure of it yet. I laugh the death in to face, after all, I still have dreams.
I will probably face the veil of not knowing only in the last second of death and step with it into another universe. Am I afraid? I don’t know. I am much more curious and hope that I will become a matter as stardust somewhere in the big universe.
I finally told friends and family about it and I spend a lot of time with them. We laugh a lot. Sometimes I think, `thanks to the fact that I can still consciously experience time so beautifully. ` It may sound strange, but I take the environment much more intense. I don’t want to deny the sadness, I see it in the eyes of friends and family. My mother suffers a lot from it. It is more difficult to watch the child die than to accept one’s own death. When we say goodbye I see her pain and what strength it costs her to be strong and sometimes it tears me apart. Together with my father I make jokes about death, but it is his way to deal with these things and with the fear of loss. The loss of your own daughter. I won’t be able to comprehend him. I can only imagine it.
I’m alone by the window. The view from a window has something so transparent, often the whole life takes place in it. Tears are running down my cheeks huddled together. It’s still raining. Pascal my friend comes into the room. I look at him „I don’t want to die.“; I say. He sits next to me and hugs me. I’m leaning against his chest. The rain’s stopped. Once again I realize that all life is fleeting and that we in the big universe are only a small foundation, similar to a snowflake.