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The Silent Office
Apr. 29th, 2004 09:48 amI can't read my friend's journals from work (though I could try when nobody is in the office - which is rare)... so don't take it personally if I haven't commented in your journals. I'll try catching up soon.
I received an email from an old friend, Mary-Helen, who is living in Korea. She just found out her father passed away in Canada. I knew her father quite well: he was a gentle, good man. He was a priest for the Anglican church. He was also a gifted intellectual; his home was filled with books on philosophy, literature and theology.
I'm sitting here at my desk, remembering the time he picked Mary-Helen and myself from Ottawa and drove us to their home in Oxford Mills. Or the times I went over to their house for dinner and we talked about the Anglican church going bankrupt or refugees living in the churches because they had nowhere else to go and were going to be deported.
Death is unreal for me because I haven't had anyone close to me die. Neither friend nor close family. An aunt from Birmingham passed away last year, but I hadn't seen her in years and we weren't really close.
***
I saw Kill Bill Vol. 2 last night, which was also about death. Stylized death, black&white death, pretty death, choreographed death. Cool death. Looking back, Kill Bill now seems like a movie about death separated from pain - characters can cry, or try to kill while their children are not looking, but deep down they don't believe in death. They don't believe they are going to die and, when confronted with their death, they don't care. The highest punishment: living life without your eyes! Or living life without limbs. Death comes with a vintage soundtrack and tanned skin. Death comes with immortalized features. Death will lead you into a rerun of forgotten cinematic gems.
Or it will lead you to miss someone from your life.
I received an email from an old friend, Mary-Helen, who is living in Korea. She just found out her father passed away in Canada. I knew her father quite well: he was a gentle, good man. He was a priest for the Anglican church. He was also a gifted intellectual; his home was filled with books on philosophy, literature and theology.
I'm sitting here at my desk, remembering the time he picked Mary-Helen and myself from Ottawa and drove us to their home in Oxford Mills. Or the times I went over to their house for dinner and we talked about the Anglican church going bankrupt or refugees living in the churches because they had nowhere else to go and were going to be deported.
Death is unreal for me because I haven't had anyone close to me die. Neither friend nor close family. An aunt from Birmingham passed away last year, but I hadn't seen her in years and we weren't really close.
***
I saw Kill Bill Vol. 2 last night, which was also about death. Stylized death, black&white death, pretty death, choreographed death. Cool death. Looking back, Kill Bill now seems like a movie about death separated from pain - characters can cry, or try to kill while their children are not looking, but deep down they don't believe in death. They don't believe they are going to die and, when confronted with their death, they don't care. The highest punishment: living life without your eyes! Or living life without limbs. Death comes with a vintage soundtrack and tanned skin. Death comes with immortalized features. Death will lead you into a rerun of forgotten cinematic gems.
Or it will lead you to miss someone from your life.
