Haunting The Dead

Death used to a simple matter some years ago. People died. We gave away their belongings to needy people, framed a photograph and hung it up the wall, sometimes with a garland dangling around it. That was it. Perhaps a shirt or a saree was kept, in remembrance. A watch, probably a ring they wore.Which always brings me to the question, the person who removes the ring from the dead body, or a necklace, how do they bring themselves to do it? I’d bury or cremate everything on their person. It’s mysterious, the tenacity life holds us with.

And then people moved on because life went on and surrounded us constantly.

Things are different now.

We are no longer constantly surrounded by life. We surround ourselves with gadgets and solitude by default. We live online. Suddenly, the dead have social profiles that they have left behind and you can still see what they said on October 18, the argument they had with you and another friend freezing over in time. You can always go back, you can always relive bits of it, there is no full and final closure.

You haunt the dead. You never get over them. You keep going back. Their face still comes up when a social site reminds you it’s their birthday. Only, you have a void staring at you where a person once was, nobody left to wish. You cannot get yourself to unfollow them, you cannot get yourself to unfriend them either. Every now and then, they pop back, like an indecent tease that will never come to any fruition.

In our world today, death is still a norm. Only, more painful. But just like it used to be, you never quite get over it.

It’s mysterious, the tenacity death holds us with.