I CAN'T BELIEVE HE'S GONE
"I can't believe he's gone," said a colleague this week upon hearing that another colleague had died suddenly. Whenever a person dies suddenly, there is an almost tangible absence which remains. Every room in which you regularly saw that person has a person-shaped hole in it. In this respect, it is indeed almost impossible to believe that someone has gone. They remain in the room, their voice continues to be heard, their scent lingers in the air until, eventually, these characteristics are forgotten, and the person becomes a memory rather than an actual presence.
The converse of this is being unable to believe that a person is not gone. Late one evening this week, it suddenly occurred to me that a girl with whom I fell in love last year and then was very suddenly cut off from, was - at the very instant I was thinking the thought - alive and well and going about her daily business not too far away. In the aftermath of our last-ever meeting, I tried various strategies for "getting over her" which worked as well as such strategies ever can. And in getting over her, I subconsciously killed her off. Hence my surprise at realising that she was not, after all, dead.
posted by paddington at 6:13 PM
3 Comments:
The moment you say or think that someone is 'gone', then you bring them back. Thus, meaningless statement of the year is always, 'I've got over him.' You haven't if you need to say that you have. In some way or another, people live on in our heads after we're divorced, bereaved, separated by distance or whatever. But because we change (as we experience new things), the imprint (or inscription) of them in our minds changes too.
even though we wish we could kill off the love of our lives, it would ironicly kill us to think that they arein fact dead(does that make sense) I know what you mean though. You so want to kill them off in order to get on with your life, but i found that, not to be the case and from time to time i actully have begun to like thinking about the love of my life (does that sound a wee bit werid?)its all part of growing up and accpting pain through relationships, which sucks really.
I have to say that I agree with you cheekyt. My first love, whom still holds a very special place in my heart died a very sudden and tragic death a few years ago. We were very young when we dated, 18, and when my dad was transferred I had no choice but to move with my parents, and thus we after a few months we broke up, though we always kept in touch. I had moved on and been in other serious relationships and really thought I was over him. But about five years after we broke up I received a call from his mother saying he had died in an accident. I was devastated, he was always this dreamy memory in the back of my mind and all of a sudden he was gone, it was like my heart broke all over again. Losing your past love is definately a hard thing to experience.
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