Watching Death

Almost two years ago I had to look after a hamster, and though it was supposed to be temporary the little creature ended up living with me permanently. I decided to call him Charlie. In many ways I liked watching him roll blindly in his ball because watching him was like watching people going about their daily business with such a deep air of oblivion about them.

Anyway, Charlie the hamster has been very sick these past couple of weeks and his sickness has now taken a turn for the worst. It’s funny how he’d always seemed more or less fine, and even when we got worried at times for his health for one reason or other, I realise now how fine and healthy he was then compared to that invisible veil of death I can sense floating about him now… one moment he was full of life, the next you could just tell… it just showed at once - death looming, like a ghost creeping up on the poor little creature.

I was watching him last night and this morning as he lay panting and lethargic, and it was like watching the ultimate struggle between whatever you want to call that ‘spark’ of life that animates all living creatures and the mere shell of a body, the vessel for that spark… and as that vessel breaks down, breaks away from its helm, it is like watching Charlie’s spark making one last stand before leaving or vacating that vessel for good… it doesn’t really feel like that spark is about to switch off to nothingness at once but more like it is about to leave, jump ship - vacating what will soon be no more than a corpse that will eventually turn to dust. And though I am writing about a little creature, isn't it the exact same fate that awaits even the most powerful of humans? Perhaps the tears I feel swelling in my eyes are down to that stark reminder courtesy of Charlie’s sickness.

I am reminded of the inexorable passing of time, of this invisible ticking clock far grander than any man-made one, of this pendulum whose dance can never be tampered with, of the ultimate hourglass whose sand once passed never gets a second chance. All this I am reminded of just watching little Charlie… I am then reminded of my greatest fears, which have always included the fear of loss, and this I have felt since I was very little. I suppose I felt it the moment I was able to understand the fact that I only had one person in my life that truly cared about and knew me - my mother. Once I understood just how potentially alone I was in this world, that I had no one other than her, the seed of fear when it comes to loss took hold at once. The biggest tale-tell sign of a child afraid of loss (to an unhealthy extent) may well be his or her attempts at taming that fear while still quite young. I remember imagining and playing out scenes where I was told that my mother had died, and I would imagine how the police would come knock on the door to let me know - and then, as I was playing the scene real, heavy tears of pain and sorrow would roll down my cheeks… I wasn’t just playing out some imaginary scene, I was really living it on an emotional level.

I find myself checking on Charlie several times a day... I see the intense tiredness weighing like a ton of lead on his tiny body now deformed by whatever sickness that’s killing him, and I can sense what it must feel like right towards the end when the wariness spawned by a constant crescendo of pain and the weight of heavy eyelids drunk on exhaustion all lead to the increasingly overwhelming urge to let go in favour of just ‘sleep’… a drifting into oblivion that knows no returns, inescapable some day. So I watch that little furry animal dying away day after day and it reminds me of the Living condition as a whole and how in the end it’s the same for all of us, whether we are humans or mere critters - once the vessel gives out, whatever it is that animated it has to vacate the premises for good. I guess I’m dreading the contrast that’s to come at some point in the near future between the sight of a very living animal and that of his irreversibly lifeless corpse… The contrast that shows you point-blank and without preamble just how unfathomable and irreversible - how deserting - Death is in essence. One moment there is life, the next it can go out just like a candle’s flame blown out by the wind.

And so I watch him huddled in one corner, unable to open his eyes anymore. From time to time he shifts, slowly and painfully, from one trembling side to the other, eyes now forever closed - and I keep thinking: he is about to leave the same way he came into this world, weak, blind and powerless. Naked, stripped of all strength... but the will to live is truly the last one to go - until the very last moment that will remains, till the vessel is just too broken and not even the will to live can put off the end.

In some parts of the world death is as much a part of life as a newborn’s first breath. Though its implacable hand is revered and feared at once there is a certain sense of acceptance Man learns to nurture along the way - a strange acceptance based on striking a balance between what manages to live and what must unfortunately leave. But to me the most striking part of death is the contrast between one moment - full of life and vitality - and the next as I am made to stare into emptiness, a vacant vessel.