tahariel | This is an angry and maudlin post, feel free to skip it

So today I got pretty angry in Ethics, because we were discussing people's right to choose to die and whether or not a fifteen-year-old can understand death, and I tried to talk about how I don't think anyone who hasn't been there can understand what it actually means for someone to die, and the rest of my class were assholes.

"I know what death is!" "I don't know what happens after you die, blah blah heaven, blah blah, nobody does." "My Granddad died!" etc. None of them seemed to get what I was actually talking about, which makes sense, because what I was saying was that they couldn't get it. What I ACTUALLY wanted to say I didn't, because I didn't want to come off melodramatic, and talking to Myv about it later helped.

I wanted to say, "have you ever lived with somebody all your life and then one day they're gone and you can never talk to them again? And walked into their room and found them dying? And sat by their bedside and been told that there's no hope and they're going to die? That they were damaged beyond repair, and there was nothing you could do about it, you were weak and useless and powerless to stop it. And sat for hours in a tiny room with nothing to think about but waiting for them to die. And been back the next day into a room in which their cold, pale body lay, laid out to look asleep but you can tell, you can immediately just know that they're gone? Because all the blood had flowed to the bottom of their body and pooled there, like a bruise out of sight, and you know it's there even if you can't see it. And their soul is gone. And have you had nightmares about it? You can't remember their face unless you look at pictures, and you can't remember their voice, or the touch of their hand, or the way they smelt any more? And you sat in the church at the funeral and you didn't just see a box at the front, there was A PERSON in there, your person, and it's not abstract any more but they will be gone forever and ever and you loved them and they loved you but they're gone now and they're never coming back?"

Because the answer would have been no, and they still wouldn't have got it because people who haven't been there can't, and it's not something you can explain to people. There are two types of people. People who see a box, and people who see a box with what used to be a person inside of it. And while it's not a bad thing to be the former, when people are fucking stupid like that about it, and can't admit that they know nothing about it, that's what makes me mad. Go into the room where your mother lay dying, open her wardrobe and cry when it smells like her. Then talk to me about knowing what it means for someone to die, bitches.