Bruce Whealton: Existential Writing

I heard that my cousin committed suicide…

Death itself is the only true evil,
destroyer of all…
all that we know or can know
is here in what we call life.

Death is the dominion of the Devil.
It is this that the Gnostics got wrong,
when the claimed that Heaven was good
and this existence here,
this world, was ruled by an
evil god – making this place evil.

Death is the great enigma,
hidden in complete secrecy,
shrouded in mystery,
the place where no one,
no one in existence now,
has ever gone.

Having not gone there,
having never seen death personally,
it has always just seemed like
an illusion…
something not real or possible.
Perhaps this is just a coping mechanism,
for dealing with the unspeakable,
pretending that Death
itself, does not exist.

When I heard that my cousin
had committed suicide,
last year,
I had to know how -
she hanged herself -
because that would be the only way
to make sense of what I was being told.

I wanted to say “No!”
or ask my sister,
if she was sure.

But I didn’t say anything.

I don’t think she really was thinking
about how permanent were her actions
or where she was going,
metaphorically speaking.

I think she must have wanted
to go away,
in her mind,
to escape, or retreat,
to some place of her creation;

But where did she get the idea
that suicide would get her there?

Death offers no hope,
no answers,
no meaning,
no comfort…
only pain,
suffering.

Death is the Devil’s domain…
the enemy of everything
we’ve ever known,
of everything we’ve ever loved,
of everything that’s ever mattered -
mattered to us.

I still don’t understand,
how my cousin could have thought
she’d get where she wanted to go
by committing suicide.

Bruce Whealton February, 2009