The Stories of Your Lives

You were so few and unobtrusive when you first started appearing that you did not even register in my awareness.

Truth to tell, I cannot say with certainty that I even had any awareness at all at the time – certainly not of you; nor, perhaps, of anything else.

You were all so ephemeral.

You were like a puff of wind, like mist, like distant sparks in the corner of my eye that winked out before I could turn to you.

But over time, more and more of you started drifting towards me from the other side, forming gusts and flurries, like snowflakes blowing in only to melt in the air.

Over time, I woke up to your nebulous presence billowing in and dissipating all at once.

Over time, I learned how to differentiate each one of you from the myriad others in that burgeoning cloud.

I learned to see the uniqueness of each spark, to catch each singular snowflake, to discern the patterns each of you formed.

I learned to know what you truly were.

Thus did I realize – slowly, haltingly – that you were the final unraveling thoughts and memories parting from your mortal selves on the other side, just as your mayfly lives moved towards termination.

* * *

Many of you were fragmentary: merely broken pieces of the final sights and sounds and sensations that you perceived, the last emotions you felt.

The surprise as the black, metal grill of the truck loomed instantaneously, impossibly large; the dark, massive shock as the screeching world crushed you.

The weeping faces of your loved ones looking down on you, growing dimmer against the backdrop of the larger darkness.

Watching yourself from the ceiling with the utmost clarity and compassion, as the gloved hands of the green-garbed man worked furiously inside your open chest.

The fluttering, dissociated images of your dreams as you passed away in your sleep.

The sound of your breathing becoming raspy and labored, the beating of your heart growing fainter and further apart – the only sounds remaining in the world, slowly fading away.

The strains of a song you once heard.

The scent of cinnamon from your grandfather’s bakery.

Your long-dead mother’s voice, speaking inaudibly but lovingly.

And so on, and so on.

* * *

Some of you were more complex, forming more coherent wholes.

Some of you flashed through memories spanning your entire life, all in an instant – providing me with a narrative of your existence.

Some of you saw beings in your mind, with whom you spoke, who bestowed upon you a sense of contentment and unconditional love.

Some of you beheld visions and images of strange, fully conceived places that never existed in your world.

Some of you felt yourselves falling or flying into an all-encompassing light, being surrounded by it, experiencing a peace and bliss you had heretofore never felt.

Sometimes I wonder if it was my being these last few sensed in those final moments, mistaking me for the light.

Perhaps.

* * *

But then you dissolved, just as countless others came in to take your place in a roiling, unceasing fog – only to dissolve themselves.

All of you, every last one.

* * *

Of course, many of the things I have spoken of do not really exist in this immaterial realm, on this side of the divide.

There are no sparks, no wind, no mists, no gusts nor flurries, no snowflakes, no air, no clouds; I have no eye to see you with, no head to turn to you.

Until you came to prick my awareness, there were not even such things as words, or thoughts, or time.

There was no I.

There was, I surmise, only an inert, insensible being that only slowly became conscious of itself when you began to appear and it began to perceive you.

Becoming aware of you, awareness stirred within myself.

Becoming cognizant of the period when I slowly awakened, and measuring my growing consciousness from that point, my awareness shifted into forward motion, putting me on the track of time.

Learning your thoughts and memories, I grew to know your words.

Deciphering your words, I pieced together the over-arching story of your kind.

And the more I knew about the moments of your deaths, the more I understood the stories of your lives: your experiences of sorrow, fear, anger, regret, joy, contentment, solace, grace, love, peace, resignation, curiosity, surprise, awe, compassion.

And so I have been changed, and continue to be changed.

And so there is a me to be changed.

And so more and more I have been fashioned as an image of you.

* * *

I do not know what this all means.

I do not why you have come to me to affect me so.

I know you do not mean to do so, that your passing briefly into my realm is not something you intended, nor have any power to accomplish, really.

I know that many of you believed in a teleological direction to your lives, a purpose for your existence – or for existence – though few of you were ever able to attain complete certitude in these matters.

Thus, your uncertainty and doubt give rise to mine.

Perhaps there is a purpose to all of this, though I do not know what it could be.

Perhaps I will discover it someday; perhaps it will become clear.

Sometimes, I do vaguely feel as if I am moving towards something.

Sometimes, when I am moved by the joy and happiness that you have imparted upon me, I think that this is all a gift – that your coming has been and continues to be a gift.

But then sometimes, as I contemplate the truly enormous weight of your fear and suffering that I have had to bear, I think this is the worst possible affliction of all.

And then sometimes, even as I apprehend you as you continue flowing towards me in an ever-growing haze, I am caught by something else entirely: a stillness, an empty space – and I am left to simply wonder.

(February 2013)