My eulogy, written by me

In year 1 semester 2 (2019), we had a compulsory Atelier class. A non graded module to learn something new, maybe even completely different from what one’s core subjects are. This compulsory class was a taster, a way to motivate students to take more ungraded work onto their plate. A lot of students found ateliers to be a pesky bug, I, on the other hand, really liked them, granted, also found them to be an acquired taste.

This atelier, I hated with a vengeance.

It was an atelier about death, our idea of death, our place in death. Or life, ruled by death.

I was 16 then, about to turn 17 in that semester. Even at that age I understood death as a necessary inevitability. It didn’t make sense to think so much about it, or the hell we might endure because of our perceived sins. Life was meaningless if we constantly thought about our place in death. Death will become the thing that guides our morality, a perceived script whose validity has never been authenticated by anyone apart from creatures equally, or more flawed than us.

We had one assignment. We were asked to write a eulogy for ourselves. It infuriated me. A fury I didn’t understand, analyse or see. The depth of it made no sense, but my anger did to me. I refused to write it.

Later, in a conversation with someone who enjoyed this activity, I tried to understand why I felt this repulsion. It would take me six more months, and then two more years to answer this question. It was simple, death would be a kindness, but of course, we are forced see it as otherwise.

***

My Eulogy

I am twenty right now. It is the 15th of April, 2022. A little early in the day.

In my religion- granted I don’t really practice it all that much -we do not have a practice of eulogies. We have rituals, and more rituals, and more rituals. I supposed it is a way of burying the grief with mundane responsibilities. Forcing oneself to keep moving, keep breathing.

Or maybe I am just giving it too much importance.

The point is, grief is passing, life is passing. It’s all a blur. Sitting here, reminiscing about a life is redundant and reductive of the life. Perhaps not reductive, but extremely redundant. Or maybe it is the emotional suppression in me that is talking.

I have researched that this is supposed to say something about me, my life, the way I lived it, the way the people around me saw me live it.

Hmm, I don’t know. A lot of my life is foggy to me.

I have been in pain, the physical kind since age 9. Though, 9 us as far as I can remember.

Back aches because of scoliosis. Head aches because of the same. Migraines. I have not known day without the three. They are always with me in some form or another.

Forced myself to get acclimatised to them, shove them deep inside me. Not show them.

In 2019 I got sick. It was a cold. I needed an MC (medical certificate). Sitting in class was exhausting, frustrating. The pain… what pain.

I went to a doctor. Got medicines. Took the MC, dropped it off at the student office. Bought soft tissues by that the skin on my nose wouldn’t peel and scab. Went home. Crashed.

I never take medicines. Something told me maybe I should, I did. I developed a cough, a horrible one. I remember my roommate’s mother being on the phone, my roommate laying on her bed on the other side of the room, being able to hear the cough. Then developed achalasia. In the beginning it was just me taking food at the wrong time. Slowly it became a desire, an anger, and frustration at my inability to swallow.

Denial, denial, denial, denial, denial, denial.

That was my life. Of the pain, the anger, the fear. I denied all of it. I just worked. Brought myself to the edge of burnout, forced into confrontation with my own body.

People think death is the hardest. It really isn’t. Living loss is.

I lost my body, my mind, my hands, my ability to trust myself. My ability. It just slipped from my hands. I hated it, still do. People think just because I have had surgery I don’t hurt anymore, feel the symptoms, or am afraid.

I hurt, a lot. My body hurts, in the same, similar, different and new ways. I feel symptoms, the same ones, similar ones, different ones and new ones. All of them are terrifying. I don’t think about death, but I do think about living in pain. Being forced to live in pain. Ah, pardon, forced to survive in pain.

Death is a kindness. It’s unknown. But the belief you are diminished, completely. Or in hell, or heaven, or just non existent. I would prefer that. I would prefer not feeling this pain, or hurt or fear.

Do I remember anything else you ask? My accomplishments and such. Yes, I do. It is blurred by pain. I achieved a lot of it at the cost of my body. Forgetting and ignoring that it had limits. I don’t remember anything, good or bad, without it being tainted with some amount of physical pain.

Eulogies are confrontations. You hide something, we all do. Shine the light on something, it’s a perfect distraction. The light needs to be shiny though. Now I am hiding something different, then I was hiding my failing body. Not much different, but incredibly different.

***

Eulogies written for oneself are a waste of time. Then again I am just 20. I have a lot more to live, a lot more pain to survive.