It’s one thing to say that your friend is dying. It’s another to say that they are dead. I held Ralph’s hand and told him I loved him. He squeezed my fingers and labored to take a breath. Even then, there is a part of my brain that could not accept that Ralph would be dead. But he was, about two hours later. For something that seemed so clearly about to happen, it is also completely incomprehensible.
Maybe because we don’t have any good authorities on death. I don’t mean authorities on how people who are still living deal with it. I’m talking about the people who are really, permanently dead. We just don’t know what they are doing today. So it is unimaginable, incomprehensible that a person could really be gone. All we have is the experience of their absence. Fortunately that experience doesn’t happen all at once, because I fear it would kill us all.