Another Year, Another Birthday

Was on a sugar high and found this pretty picture

Happy birthday, blog.
You are four years old- perhaps the one possession, like fine wine or memories, I regard that gets better with age.
And because of this fact, I cherish you more than any other thing I own.
When I first started, I saw how childish I sounded- although how much of it was true in the past is still true today.
After leafing through the first twenty entries in my archive, I realized I am much the same person in the past as I am in the present. I have definitely become more serious, a little more mature and a little more thoughtful.

Death is a strange, mysterious subject I myself have experienced little of. I've never been to a funeral before. I 'learn' death through movies- it is one of the ways I 'educate' myself. The bullet pierces and breaks through the surface of the skin, lodging itself in the warmth of the tissue, blood seeps through. Perhaps it is a quick death if it was aimed at the head. Perhaps the body will go into its last macabre: shudder, convulse and tremble to move no more- the last dance it will ever make.

Most people will say, "I am not afraid of death."
But how can the levelheadedness of words be weighed against the dark tumultous fear one feels when faced with the possibility of arriving at 'game over'?
I am afraid of death.
Correction: I am afraid of watching things disintegrate before my eyes, helpless to stop it at all. Thoughts can disintegrate but they still remain as thoughts- they cannot be something less thus my blog will only cease if I stop writing or if I hit 999 posts or if I delete it (or it gets removed by blogger).
But the body is just a body.
I came home to see my dad limping towards our car in the airport. My mom told me after four hours of skiing, he was about to go and change when he fell down and hurt the ligament in his left leg. Now when I see him I don't recall memories of him walking normally. I wonder if I'll ever see my dad walking normally again.

My only memory of death was when my turtle, Lucky, died. He suffocated, ironic I know, when he shoved himself under a turned plastic garden pot used as a rock when we left him at a family friend's place over the summer. He couldn't get back out so he drowned. When I found out, all I recall doing was putting a pillow to my face and crying and my mom swiped the pillow away because she thought it was dirty.

I don't recall my grandfather's death. I only remember, at twelve years old, having to bow in front of his picture surrounded by gods and faux red candles. I don't recall my dad's grief either. All I know about my grandfather is that he loved real cashmere sweaters and had them in every colour, and only wore Bally leather shoes.

My great grandmother is still alive at 106. When I look at her, I'm in awe that she probably lived through every single decade! And how many wars were there? I wish I could talk to her. She could give me a personal century worth of history! She kind of scares me: her face is all sunken in with only a thin layer of epidermis stretched over her skull, her body is tiny and stooped over in her wheelchair. She doesn't remember anyone. She can't say anything. All she does is cry out which comes in a mournful sound. I look at her- her eyes are vacant.
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If this is what it feels like to love and to lose, I don't want a part of it.
I feel like I've gained and lost at the same time.