Back to the grindstone

Friday afternoon had me entering my office again for perhaps the last time. The security man and the girl at the reception desk both waved to me in recognition and I waved back. Then the quiet and familiar elevator took me to the third floor. I don't know what I had expected for a usually bustling Friday afternoon but most of the desks were unoccupied and only three girls were in the office. They came to inquire after my health as I sat on my chair again feeling the territorial familiarity of my chair and my desk with its inanimate intimacy. The computer was off and my desk top lay empty except for my 'hello kitty' pencil holder and my photo frame. My draw still held a few personal possessions and mementos. I was half-way through packing when Hana, the assistant senior editor came into the office and greeted me and invited me to the staff canteen for coffee.
We sat and drank and talked about a lack of a decent social life and feeding ducks in the park. She told me about her pet hamster named Mariko and finally her topic became my recent health problems. I smiled and told her that this new treatment seems to be the miracle we had hoped for. She asked what I would do now and I told her that I have a couple of options that seem promising and then she asked the hypothetical question that if I knew then what I know now would I have resigned from this position?

I candidly admitted that I did not know then what I know now and that my decision then was based on not being a burden to anyone and of my belief that I would not be able to perform my duties to the best of my ability while undergoing various treatments for my illness. There were other more personal reasons as well as these but I made no mention of them because I'd much rather she heard my more altruistic reasons.
She informed me with a deliberate sad face that my leaving creates a vacancy in the office and would I like to apply for the position?
I looked at her quizzically and I asked quite frankly if she were offering me my old job back after my resignation?
What resignation she asked?
"Now I'm quite busy and have to go so have you anything to say to me?" she asked standing, her coffee unfinished.
I just stood and expressed my deepest thanks and sincere gratitude.
"Then I'll see you on Monday morning." she said with a smile and turned and left me with perhaps a small tear in my eye and a wonderment that sometimes the wheels of fate do seem to turn in a most fortunate way.

I went back to the office and told the girls my news and they were as happy as I. I still said goodbye to my desk and chair next to the window. A coveted place and one that I particularly enjoyed but I'd promised that place to my partner Riko. I continued to fill my box with my possessions and I took it to the front corner desk behind the door. Monday morning she will sit next to the window as she had anticipated and I will take her spot.

	Queen - Who Wants To Live Forever
	Momo found this at skreemr.com

Death is a taboo subject in many places and it is certainly avoided in my culture but I have recently contemplated it and tried to understand its most basic essence. Poetically and with a sense of relief I can say that I felt the cold hand of Shinigami reaching out for me and now blindly I hear his footsteps walking away.
In a cold light and far removed from any emotional attachment, death simply is the end of bodily functions and either the slow dissipation of the bodies elements returning it back to the Earth or the quicker incineration of this now empty shell removes someone who many knew from the world of life where we remain. I am not going to dwell on the argument of 'when' death actually occurs or the final crossing of the Rubicon as it is sometimes so referred. Once mental activity stops and we are effectively brain-dead then this for me marks the end no matter that other parts of my body may continue some small activity after this event.
I think we are all aware in basic biology of the dead leaves that fall in autumn and in their cycle they become the humus upon the ground which the new growth of the following spring will feed upon. "Soylent green anyone"? So coldly we can contemplate such natural life-death cycles of life around us but when we apply it to humans then it suddenly becomes a different kettle of fish.

We view death as the final loss of everything such as our possessions and our awareness and I think most of us at one time in our lives, even if but briefly, may have fantasized about living forever, even if just for the sake of curiosity to know what will occur after our supposed demise. Of course we may idly make such a wish or immortality without realizing the consequences that an endless life would be quite intolerable. Perhaps our lives are too short and we dream that we can extend them until such interest in the world disappears and we have no more loved ones to care about. Would any values remain to hold us here?

Being dead is I imagine almost the same as being unborn, a state that has no paradise or hellish terrors but it is as an endless and a dreamless state. Perhaps then it is in the playing out of our last days that frighten some of us? The act of dying! I certainly feared it because I felt that I had so much left to accomplish and so much yet to do and it was all coming too soon. Dying is only something that we who live may do and we will experience it but once but being dead is not something we can experience. We can only experience others being dead in our sense of loss and grief.

Aurelius once said that the past has gone and the future is as yet unborn and so our death is only the loss of our present moment and is that present worth holding on to? There may be many answers of yes and no and perhaps other answers but I think he was wrong because I have more to lose than just my present moment which I do want to hold on to and each new present second that follows it. I have my memories of all that which made me and of who I am and I also have my hopes and dreams for the future for all that I could be. I want to be in the next chapter because I am not even halfway through this book yet!

Religions promise some afterlife of reward and punishment which in my mind really serves no purpose other than to control the living. Plato once mentioned that a blissful afterlife belief should be encouraged because it would make soldiers brave and unafraid of death. I think we have seen examples of that mentality in our modern world. Zealot leaders make "lesser men" believe this dream that they are promised seven-two eternal virgins in their version of the afterlife after giving up their lives in a violent manner.
To avoid this fear of death we must first accept that death is inevitable and then we simply ignore it. In counting the days until that final heartbeat we waste the last of that time remaining to us. I know that for a fact and I saved this topic for Halloween, the time when the spirit world and our world are closest together!
Live you life and fill it with experience and seek always that which makes you and those you love happy.