Monday, April 06, 2009
♥ 8:37 PM
I found God on the corner of 1st and Amistad
Where the West was all but won
All alone, smoking his last cigarette
I said, "Where've you been?"
He said, "Ask anything."
The view from the bottom has to be vividly captured in the memories of those who have experienced it.
I now understand why Jodi Picoult's books have that wry feel to it, and why people are always so enraptured by her stories, myself included. Her books always, inevitably, have a death weaved in intricately along the lines and the pages. The books, oftentime in paperbacks, are a representative of life for us- it dies off. Whether or not the unwanted ending comes in the initial pages or at the last throes of the captivating read, death, ultimately, although a pain, is irrevocable. Unavoidable, ineluctable, death is an ending we all face, in a matter of time.
Is that why, so oftentimes, many of us cry whilst reading her books? Because we ourselves identify with the tragedies unraveling, in different contexts, perhaps?
It creeps up on you, you'll never know when it's gonna pounce and take away all that you've known your entire life. In Jodi Picoult books, when there's a death in the beginning, the survivors mourn, but by the end, the bereaved's family finds relief and the grieving stops, ending on a bittersweet note. All's well ends well? Just maybe. On the other hand, when the death happens on the last sentence of the last paragraph of the last page, contrary to when the death happens early, we're left empty and yearning.
Ironic how everyone wants a long life, but the consequences of that never fail to bring along sadness and umbrage for a longer time. If you died at 50, and touched 100 lives during that period, as opposed to dying at 20, and touching 25 lives instead, which age brings along more aches and stings, with the gripe of paroxysms?
In my honest opinion, I would like to die earlier in that book that's written about me. I would die earlier, spare myself the agony of looking down and seeing a group of my close family and friends in pain, or spare myself the affliction if no one even cries for me.
Perhaps it would be preferable to not even be born at all. A far superior option as opposed to having toil through the perils of this world.
