Chats about Death

"This next song is about death, and how it doesn't really exist, and how we're all going to live forever."
--Rufus Wainwright, opening for a Tori Amos concert, 2002

***

Our conversation this weekend went something like this:

Jeremy: "Are we still on for Saturday?"
Sheri: "Well, it depends."
Jeremy: "Depends on what?"
Sheri: "On whether or not my grandmother dies."
Jeremy: "She's dying?"
Sheri: "For some time now. My grandfather is getting restless. He wants her to just get on with it."
Jeremy: "That's terrible."
Sheri: "I know. It could really mess up our plans."

Her grandmother did die, and it did mess up our plans. We changed the party location from her family cabin to a cramped basement, up in the hills. She got there late, driving back from southern Utah where she had spoken at the funeral. She said she tried to tell jokes to break the tension, but everyone kept bawling...

Jeremy: "Like you were standing up there drowning puppies?"
Sheri: "Yeah, like that."

Flash forward to later that night. It's after 1 a.m. and a few of us hang around and bring out the guitars. New Guy, a janitor/musician, plays a song he wrote about his uncle. He's doing the soundtrack for a Sundance entry and is really into experimental stuff. When he sings into the thunder tube, high-pitched and slightly off, I kind of want to laugh. But the rest of the song is heart-felt, and sad. He makes it sad. His 72-year-old uncle, who had never spoken a word of English to him, was shot down by the police.

New Guy: "He had a way of communicating with me that didn't require we use the same language."

and later...

"...there was a trail of blood, all the way up the stairs. He was an old man. How can he look threatening?" New Guy is wiping his eyes.

Two conversations about death on the same day, but only one of them gets to me. So far, Death and I, we've kept our distance. He doesn't get in my way, I don't get in his. So I wonder, next time we encounter each other, could I still make jokes? Or should I be spending more time practicing my guitar...