We'll all end up dead.

Tell me where's your hiding place?
I am worried I'll forget your face
And I've asked everyone
I am beginning to think I imagined you all along
Arctic Monkeys : Cornerstone

I was planning to write another posting today. Something fun and light-hearted. Maybe about the night out with girls a few nights ago, with pink champagne and endless discussions about good-looking firemen. I guess I could still do it another time. But this morning my plan disappeared when my mother came downstairs and said she had a sad dream.

‘It was as if I was in Baku...’ She said...’And the weather was not very good. Too windy, too miserable...So I thought: What could I do? Ah, I could get a nice chocolate eclair for myself! So I went to the bakery shop and it was busy in there, and I kept looking and then, suddenly, I thought what am I doing? Why don’t I buy a big cake and take it to my mum’s and sister’s place? They would be so excited! Why didn’t I think of it before?‘

But of course,  she then woke up and remembered that there was nobody to take the cake to. Because, unfortunately, both my grandmother and my aunt died a few years ago.

Does it get any easier with years? I guess it does in a way. You don’t walk around crying all day long in public, making everyone around you feel awkward. But sometimes at night, when you relax and fall asleep, your memories take over.

I was listening to her telling me about this dream and I had nothing to say. I could only nod in understanding.
Because I, myself, often get similar dreams. But even if  I stay blissfully unaware whilst asleep, I always have to wake up in the end.

I am reading “The God Delusion” by Richard Dawkins right now. And he spoke of people who find comfort in telling themselves they would meet their loved ones on the other side. The question is how many of those people truly believe that we survive our death, and how many just try to convince themselves it is possible? If people believed there was a life, perhaps a better one, after this one, would they not just be thrilled to be dying or watch their relatives pass away? Would they not be saying ‘See ya later, grandpa!’ instead of crying and getting upset?

And this morning, I wished I could tell my mother something like that. I wished I were that kind of person- infantile enough?- to honestly believe that there is something beyond this life that I could assure her about. And I mean, really believe it. Not wish that it was true. Not pretend and convince myself. But truly think that it was the case. As for me, I just think there isn’t anything. One day we are alive, and another we just disappear. It is hard for me to accept, just like for anyone else. But we all find our consolation somehow. That is just the way we cope. And for me, one bizarre consolation came, unexpected, from my cousin. Once, a while ago, when I saw an old babushka walking down the road, and she reminded me of my grandmother who I still miss terribly, I got really upset and texted my cousin.

‘Oh, stop being so stupid!’ She replied in her usual abrupt, short manner. ‘We'll all end up dead sooner or later.’

‘True.’I thought. And that concept, somehow, comforted me.