The Child Outside of Heaven

The Boy in Room 12

There are two ways that you can die on this earth. The first way is through physically dying. Everybody on earth dies. The plants, the animals, the people; we all have an expiration date.

Nowadays there are ways to extend your life; there are ways to make it look like you can stay young forever. But time is rough to everyone, and everyone, rich or poor, dies. 

You can get sick, or you can suddenly be run over. You can get shot, or stabbed, or you can fall off a bridge. Your heart stops to beat and your body goes cold, and then you cannot talk anymore nor can you feel anything anymore. 

You look like you're sleeping, and when you die you join a large community of people who like to sleep under the earth. And then you are like a memory, and your name either evokes angry tears or happy memories.

That's the way with everyone, and everything.

The second way of dying is not in a physical way, but instead it is simply being forgotten by the people you loved. When you are no longer remembered or cared about by the people you thought loved you, then what's the point of going on? Is there a purpose left in life if nobody cares anymore? What's the point of succeeding in life or getting promoted to CEO if you cannot enjoy it with anyone at all?

You may as well just quit your job and live a solitary life. I have heard that many people would rather turn to this option than be cared about at all. I have read about men and women who, one day in their workplaces, suddenly got up, quit, and moved to a remote area in the earth to reflect and live a happy life on their own. 

Perhaps it is nice, to be completely alone. To have no one but yourself, to have the silence, the independence, the adventure, and the silence all over again. Me, myself, and I. Perhaps that would be nice. 

Being alive is not simply just knowing that your heart pumps blood or that you inhale oxygen and exhale carbon dioxide. In this case, being alive is being able to feel the air fill your lungs and to have never felt any other miraculous feeling than that.

When one dies, you are either remembered or forgotten. Sometimes, it can be two separate occasions: a physical death that lives on in the minds of the person's loved ones or a forgotten death that destroys a person's will to live forever. And in those two ways, everyone can and will die.

I have died in the first way: a physical death wrought by a sickness that plagued my entire life. And still, even as it has been a long time since then, I still see people who do continue to breathe and their hearts continue to beat, and still, because they have been forgotten, it is as if they are not completely alive.

Many people do not understand the value and privilege of being alive. When you are dead, there is nothing more for you to do. You are but a name whispered in the wind, and nobody can truly see you. But when you are alive, you can do almost anything. You can be anything.

To this day, even with all the modern miracles the human race has concocted, death is still something that people find hard to explain. When children ask why grandma or grandpa is suddenly no longer baking cookies anymore, the parent will struggle to find the words.

And it is understandable why; I mean, it's not easy for a child to comprehend that the person who stands in front of them will be gone as well. It is hard for anyone to understand why someone just disappears from the face of the earth.

When my parents and my relatives looked down on me on the day I turned seven years old, I could read in their eyes that they were just waiting for me to die. They were all smiling and laughing and eating cake like they were in a garden party instead of a hospital room.