The Tragedy of a Mundane Death

Between the ages of 13 and 15, the death of two people irrevocably changed the course of my life. The first person was close to someone who has gone on to become one of my oldest, closest and most valued friends, and the second person was someone who held immense relevance to my own existence. Both of these deaths are important not only due to the proximity of these people to me and mine, but also because these were two people taken before their time, people who left behind young families, and those that could have achieved much had they remained alive. The second point is especially relevant. The death of people who leave young, impressionable children behind is always tragic. When both of these people died, the outpouring of grief was like I had never seen before, or since. People still remember these events, and get a little misty remembering these individuals, like they never got over that instant. Since then, almost every year, I have been witness to the loss of at least one person around my age. And each time, the reaction is always the same, disbelief and shock.

Today, I experienced a different kind of death. Someone very close to me passed away last night. Now this person was not someone I am deeply emotionally attached, but rather, someone who has always been around in my life. My whole life, this person has been a significant relative, a familiar presence, if you will. I was shocked to learn that he had passed, and am still unable to truly comprehend it, but back home, there is no shock, there is no tragedy. The real tragedy is that his death had been imminent for a while now, he had seen through most of his responsibilities, he has grown children who are educated and well placed to take care of themselves, and their mother, and most of all, his passing is almost mundane in comparison to those who I had spoken of earlier. The voices on the other end of the phone were calm, distant, almost composed when receiving my condolences.

All of this has led me to my new moment of discovery, that there are people in my life that are going to pass on in the next few years and they are all older, those that have lived their lives out, and those that will not be mourned as deeply by those around them, simply because all things have their time to pass. This discovery is really, really depressing. The idea that the death of someone so close to you is not devastating, not life altering does not sit right with me. In my mind, certain things should be Shakespearean, there should be great tragedy in the death of someone, and great joy in the finding of love. These events should be worthy of poetry and verse, they should change the way you perceive life and they should change the course of your existence.

So I suppose true tragedy lies in the human condition, that is now so cynical, that even the drama of death is lessened by our jaded view of the world.