the tragedy of Antony and Cleopatra

She shall be buried by her Antony;
No grave upon the earth shall clip in it
A pair so famous. High events as these
Strike those that make them; and their story is
No less in pity than his glory which
Brought them to be lamented. Our army shall
In solemn show attend this funeral,
And then to Rome.

is Death the last sleep?

No - it is the last and final awakening.

I just got a chill...

nightmares at the morgue

the start of my third semester of school coincided with the "hands on" embalming classes at the Bellevue city morgue.

an overwhelming sadness takes over me every monday when I have to go to morgue, apart from the fact of never knowing what to expect the contents of the body bag to be, it just breaks my heart to see how many people die in complete solitude, forgotten by their loved ones, if they even had any.

mostly homeless people and old folks from nursing homes end up on our embalming tables...

who knows what amazing things they must have done in their lifetime, I like to fantasize and imagine what remarkable deeds they accomplished, maybe they were so phenomenal that they gave up all earthly possessions and served others, or maybe travelled to far away lands, fought for something they believed in, lost everything and chose to live in complete secrecy in New York so to protect the people they love... creating individual stories for each deceased person helps me cope with the fact that at the end of the day they died alone, no one came to claim them, their committal service is said by one of us after we all practiced our incisions, sutures, injecting and aspirating on them. God bless them.

needless to say, seeing all this death takes some getting used to... I haven't slept all that well lately

grieving when there hasn't been a death

so many factors can prepare you to the ultimate loss of the privation of life caused by death.

recently a dear friend of mine moved away, the feelings of loss are very similar to those one would feel if in mourning, for the exception I can call her any time I want to hear her voice and similar things... but I have had to adjust to her not being around, it's madding how much I miss her, it's like a little part of me died, and the new part isn't quite ready, nor is it even there for that matter

and thoughts like "what happens when I can't call the person I love and care about? what happens when there is nothing left but a fading memory?" arise and keep me awake at night

I'm not at all concerned with my own death, but that of others I care about, what then?

I guess I should not be distressed by these reflections until the time comes, but none the less... I can't get rid of this sad core that's overshadowing my mind lately

a man is not completely born until he is dead

today I had a lot on my mind, and these are a few of my thoughts:

1. thinking about death prompts questions and brings about the thought and effort necessary to acquire an understanding of it. We do not fear what we understand.

2. thinking about it and about it's inevitability and unpredictability makes us more aware of life, more tuned in and more appreciative of each moment and aspect of life.

3. Thinking about it and about the eternity that follows makes the worries and trials of this short earth-life seem smaller and easier to bear; thus it becomes easier to live with the problems and difficulties of daily life.

and this Shakespeare quotation comes in handy:

Be absolute for death; either death or life
Shall thereby be the sweeter.

act III, scene I, Measure for Measure

Death according to Monty Python

Yoda on Death

“Death is a natural part of life. Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force. Mourn them do not. Miss them do not. Attachment leads to jealously. The shadow of greed, that is.”

“Soon will I rest, yes, forever sleep. Earned it I have. Twilight is upon me, soon night must fall.”

Death

Death is a process and not a moment in time. During the process there is a series of physical and chemical changes, starting before the medicolegal time of death and continuing afterward. In the sequence of death there is a point of irreversibility that can generally be diagnosed by physicians. When this point is reached nothing more can be done to restore intelligent life.

William and Emily

THERE is something about Death
Like love itself!
If with some one with whom you have known passion,
And the glow of youthful love,
You also, after years of life
Together, feel the sinking of the fire,
And thus fade away together,
Gradually, faintly, delicately,
As it were in each other’s arms,
Passing from the familiar room—
That is a power of unison between souls
Like love itself!

Edgar Lee Masters (1868–1950). Spoon River Anthology. 1916.

And Death Shall Have no Dominion

And death shall have no dominion
Dead men naked they shall be one
With the man in the wind and the west moon
When their bones are picked clean and the clean bones gone
They shall have stars at elbow and foot
Though they go mad they shall be sane
Though they sink through the sea they shall rise again
Though lovers be lost love shall not
And death shall have no dominion.

I am Death

Like the gravedigger in “Hamlet”, the Squire treats death as a bitter and hopeless joke. Since we all play chess with death, and since we all must suffer through that hopeless joke, the only question about the game is how long it will last and how well we will play it. To play it well, to live, is to love

have faith

I didn't get to say goodbye

Nonna and Nonno

last sunday my surrogate grandmother died, I love her and miss her so much...

this is what my mother wrote about Nonna and Nonno:

In all the years we have been in Vicenza, we have been friends with our old neighbors Toni and Amelia. They became adoptive grandparents to Arthur and Daniela and good helpful friends to all of us. Toni came and helped us in the yard for many years. He thought nothing of climbing up a towering cyprus tree and cutting off the top at 80 years old. Finally he stopped riding his moto so we he didn't come anymore. We always went to visit them and took all of our visitors to meet them. They welcomed whoever showed up at their door no matter what time of the day it was. Toni talked and told stories even if it was in a different language, and Amelia had such a sense of humor she could make people laugh in any language. Toni died in May 2006, with his boots on working in the yard. Amelia lasted a year and a half without him, although she would say "non c'e niente senza Toni, tutto e` cambiato": without Toni there is nothing everything has changed. She had a very good Romanian woman taking care of her, who probably kept her alive that long. She had heart disease which worsened with time and quietly took her home on the 5th of January. She asked Art if he would take her on a cruise a few hours before she died. I went there 2 or 3 times a week for all the time we were here. Amelia was a true friend, and I loved her as did any of you who were able to meet her and laugh with her and look into those wonderful eyes.

A chapter has closed for us but not only....that generation who lived through 2 wars, suffered from hunger and didn't really get indoor plumbing and electricity until 30-40 years ago, is disappearing from Italy. They were the backbone of Italy, living simply, gathering food from the fields and forest, cooking meals to die for in simple kitchens without a lot of equipment, raising animals that they ate--meat with no drugs and creepy additives, not consuming because they remembered how it was to live without and what it was like to carry water up the hill each day from a communal spring in the valley. They said that was the good life in which people were happy and willing to share what little they had. As they disappear from the countryside, I hope Italy manages to hold onto what makes it a charming and wonderful country to visit and live in.

FUNeral

on death

And after your death, when most of you for the first time realize what life here is all about, you will begin to see that your life here is almost nothing but the sum total of every choice you have made during every moment of your life.
Your thoughts, which you are responsible for, are as real as your deeds. You will begin to realize that every word and every deed affects your life and has also touched thousands of lives.
There is no joy without hardship. If not for death, would we appreciate life? If not for hate, would we know the ultimate goal is love?...At these moments you can either hold on to negativity and look for blame, or you can choose to heal and keep on loving. Those who learned to know death, rather than to fear and fight it, become our teachers about life.

from the womb to the tomb

every day we grow closer to our imminent death, every minute that passes only draws us nearer to our own demise; as we grow older, as new experiences are lived, old ones die, so one could say that a bit of us dies every day, are we nothing more then walking corpses? what exactly does it mean to be alive?

today for example I could very well say I don't feel too alive, in fact being dead sounds quite appealing, hypothetically speaking that is, I'm not on a mission of self deliverance, I just want to point out that if I were to die tomorrow, I wouldn't complain, up until that moment I would have lived a good life, to it's fullest no doubt with no regrets of the sort; so I'm at peace with the fact that sooner or later I WILL die. It just hurts when a little of you dies for one reason or another, when a hope or a dream dies, that in my opinion, is more painful then the actual physical death. So one then would conclude, that we are in constant mourning, because we are always dying, even if we are alive, I guess that's part of the process of growing up, we grieve for the loss of the innocence and purity of being a child, and we weep for the people who come and go in our lives, we lament for the lost potential, an idea that doesn't turn out as one would hope.

living is a very difficult task, a gift no doubt, but none the less a strenuous one