A Real Chunk of Real Reality

When someone dies and becomes instantaneously a has-been, in the purest sense of that awful expression, our attention begins its inevitable shift. Since we can no longer focus on the now absent individual as a fellow traveler on the same track we’re on, we begin instead to gauge the trajectory of the loved one’s life, the total life which is over, alas, but therefore also complete and whole. Now the structure is set and clear: now what’s left is as though encapsulated in the oval of its own boundaries in time and space, as an eggshell encapsulates the entire chronicle of a fertilized yolk developing into the finished chick that pecks its way out from within, cracking and breaking the shell, stepping out.

Now at death the story of the totality of a life is a fact, a real chunk of real reality in real time and space, beyond harm or alteration or destruction, like 2 plus 2, absolutely dependable, everlasting. Not exactly life after death, granted. Not exactly like coming together at the Brewing Market for a cup of coffee and having a couple of laughs.