Tricky

As I sit here I feel like I am so close to the secret of life that I just have to write it all down.

Douglas Adams in his “Hitchhikers’ Guide to the Galaxy” reveals his answer to the secret of life. In his story, a culture of extraordinary beings decides they must know the secret of life. They expend huge amounts of resources and build the ultimate super computer. They fire it up and ask it to reveal the “secret of life, the universe and everything”. It replies that request is “tricky” and will require a long time to calculate. For a long period of time, I can’t remember exactly how long but for our purposes here let’s say a thousand years, the society goes along with just a little hint of smugness, secure in the knowledge that they will have the answer. When the computer finally, with great pomp and circumstance, reveals the answer the people are stunned. It’s “42”. A great hue and cry goes up. “What does that mean?” they shout. The computer inquires back, “So what’s the question?” The people then set out to create an even more fantastic computer to discover the question to the secret of life. Douglas Adams is writing the story so hilarity ensues. In my case, I’m not sure if I have the answer or the question but I feel that I may be onto something.

As we all have, I have had deaths in my family that affected me profoundly. Although these experiences had the finality of death in common, they were as unique as the people involved. They touched me and gave me the prospective I have on death. I’m not sure that I’m unique in my beliefs because it’s not a subject I share with others often. I sense the fear and loathing they experience when I start on the subject so I generally reverse course or touch it blithely and move on.

Part of the revulsion we all feel about death is that it doesn’t just happen to the principle character; it touches everyone with a relationship to the deceased. Some merely note an absence while others are ripped raw by the experience. The actual pain of the loss is dulled but the horror lingers like the taste of blood in your mouth.

That’s why writing about this subject may be cathartic for me. I know I have to get it out before I scream like a primal thing in the dark. I am losing someone very precious to me right now and feel powerless. I know I can’t stop it but I long to find a measure of control. I’d like to control the situation, snatch my beloved father from death’s icy jaws, but I know I can’t. I also know I can’t prevent the rising horror, the isolating grief from consuming me. All I have is my intellect and a desire to understand to hold me firm in the path of the monster.