Regardless, there a two things in my entire life that have made me feel mildly alright with death.
This Poem is the second most comforting thing I've come across after losing someone close to me. If you haven't lost someone that you're close to yet you won't know what I mean until that day.
The first thing that anyone had ever told me that made a lick of sense in terms of now, and not once I reach the eternal goddamn land of bliss in the sky, involved something someone said to me after my grandfather's funeral. I was relatively young, and therefore I believed this to be a very unique idea which I soon found out was rather cliche. Nonetheless it was a wholesome, unoriginal thought that I found made a tremendous amount of sense compared to the " Don't be sad, he will be waiting for you in heaven with our savior" stuff I had been hearing for several hours at his wake and funeral.
I am not afraid to admit that I was the biggest sniveling ass at that funeral, and someone had taken notice. Their condolence was something offered in passing, and one that I could tell they were saying just to say something to help me. That, I believe, was an admirable act in its own right, but I don't think this person ever imagined that what they said that day would stay with me for so long.
Simply put, they explained that my grandfather is gone physically, but is still living on through all of us. What we've learned from him and the stories he told us will be passed down, and so he will never really be gone completely.
Damn, that's deep Aunt Jeanie!--but really, something in my mind clicked at that moment and there was an immediate sense of relief.
This poem is the only other time I remember that feeling returning to me...
Thanatopsis
- TO him who in the love of Nature holds
- Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
- A various language; for his gayer hours
- She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
- And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
- Into his darker musings, with a mild
- And healing sympathy, that steals away
- Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
- Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
- Over thy spirit, and sad images
- Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
- And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
- Make thee to shudder, and grow sick at heart;--
- Go forth, under the open sky, and list
- To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
- Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
- Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee
- The all-beholding sun shall see no more
- In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
- Where thy pale form was laid, with many tears,
- Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
- Thy image. Earth, that nourished thee, shall claim
- Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
- And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
- Thine individual being, shalt thou go
- To mix for ever with the elements,
- To be a brother to the insensible rock
- And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
- Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
- Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
- Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
- Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
- Couch more magnificient. Thou shalt lie down
- With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
- The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good
- Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
- All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
- Rock-ribbed and ancient as the sun,--the vales
- Stretching in pensive quietness between;
- The venerable woods--rivers that move
- In majesty, and the complaining brooks
- That make the meadow green; and, poured round all,
- Old Ocean's gray and melancholy waste,--
- Are but the solemn decorations all
- Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
- The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
- Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
- Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
- The globe are but a handful to the tribes
- That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings
- Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
- Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
- Where rolls the Oregon, and hears no sound,
- Save his own dashings--yet the dead are there:
- And millions in those solitudes, since first
- The flight of years began, have laid them down
- In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.
- So shalt thou rest, and what if thou withdraw
- In silence from the living, and no friend
- Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
- Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
- When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
- Plod on, and each one as before will chase
- His favorite phantom; yet all these shall leave
- Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
- And make their bed with thee. As the long train
- Of ages glide away, the sons of men,
- The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
- In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
- The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
- Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
- By those, who in their turn shall follow them.
- So live, that when thy summons comes to join
- The innumerable caravan, which moves
- To that mysterious realm, where each shall take
- His chamber in the silent halls of death,
- Thou go not, like a quarry-slave at night,
- Scourged to his dungeon, but, sustained and soothed
- By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
- Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
- About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.
- William Cullen Bryant