On Death

I sang for him today. Just me and my guitar, singing softly. Very softly. Frank Sinatra, the Beatles, some of my songs. My voice was just a feeble whisper, but still loud enough, I hope, that he might've heard me. His eyes were half open, but I knew he couldn't see me. His mouth was gaping, two teeth protruding into visibility, the rest probably gone.

If someone hadn't told me that this was my grandpa, the ukelele playing war veteran, I wouldn't have recognized him. His jaw was shrunken, his cheeks pointing sickly out onto the pillow, and his skin yellowy and dead, speckled with feeble white hairs all over his jaw.

Death is ugly and tragic. C.S. Lewis said it best: "The ugliest living person in the world looks like an angel compared to the prettiest dead person." Or something like that. I don't remember.

This is death: It takes the strongest of men and breaks them, the most beautiful of women and makes them hideous, the sharpest of men and makes them hopelessly forgetful.

There is no way except one to escape it. To escape it, we must die. Then, we will never experience Death and its decay ever again.