spinoff

Death is banal. Who expects it? Nobody. And everybody. The people murdered three weeks ago in London, and the many more people killed in Iraq that following weekend or Egypt this weekend could not predict their own deaths. Everybody continues their lives not considering how or where they might die because it so terrifying to contemplate as to be almost meaningless.

 

The people who die in suicide bombings are on their way somewhere, to meet a friend or a date, to get to work, in a pissed off mood, annoyed at a colleague. And so are the people run over randomly in the street, the people who have a sudden heart attack. What goes through their heads as they die? Their lives? Family? Regrets?

 

Whateverit is, you can be sure they never expected that moment to be the end. One minute, thinking ‘drat, I meant to pick up some peanut butter’, next minute squashed by a bus. A quick, surprising end.

 

Are these people who are surprised by death therefore lucky? This Spinoffite assumes so. Several weeks back, the obituary of a man who was an inspiration to us all was published on this site. He died in a way that nobody would wish to die. He had a long and terrible illness, which was more painful for him than he would ever let any of us know.

 

But his family was grateful to get to know him before he did pass away. He had been an ephemeral figure for them, travelling for much of his life, and during the last months many members of his family said how they valued spending time with him at the end of his life. 

 

Death is inevitably banal. This Spinoffite is just trying say, late on a Tuesday night, that life might feel banal sometimes. But it is never more banal than death.

 

Make as much of it as you can.

 

Yours etc.,

 

Spinoff.

 

(The author of this piece takes the tube from Edgware Road tube station every morning.)