Dear Reader, I Saw My First Dead Body Today
I have to tell you something: your priorities are all wrong.
My Grandad died this Thursday.
I know, I know. He was 90 years old and dying is what grandparents tend to do.
Except he was joking with me at home on Monday, and I was gently ushered in — by a nurse I must look about 16 to, reluctant to take me alone, asking if my uncle is my father, are you sure? — to see his dead body in Side Room 2 on Thursday.
72 hours.
My uncle held my hand and I felt his clench, involuntarily, around my own. Even experienced adults do not like to look at a dead body.
There is something uncanny about it — the bardo space between loved one and meat. Cooling, but not yet cold. I wanted to say, but that’s not him.
It took me a while to realise it wasn’t a paid poor imitation actor who was going to jump up.
I am not writing this piece to burden you with grief.
I just have to grab you by the shoulders and tell you this:
Everything you are so invested in is bullsh*t.
There is only a brief window, fresh from Death, we can see clearly enough to say this in. Still in the clothes I put on when he was alive.
