Day 69

Today, I downloaded and started listening to the audiobook for Fight Club. If you didn't realize that the movie was based on a book then you are not alone. I didn't know this either. At least not until yesterday when a colleague happened to mention it during a conversation. My ears perked up when he said that he wanted his son to read it. "Wait. Fight Club is a book?" "Yeah. It was written by Chuck Palahniuk. He also wrote Choke." Another book that I hadn't heard of. Regardless, I was ready for a new audiobook having just finished my last one a few days ago. 

I like Fight Club the movie. In fact, I had recently watched it with Damian - he for the first time, me for the first time in many years. It has a good blend of dark comedy, weirdness, engaging story and memorable lines that are fun to quote at the proper time. As with most books that have been adapted into a movie or television show, I assumed (correctly it turns out) that the book would provide much more detail about what motivates the characters to do what they do. So now I get to hear directly from the narrator (main character) what is going on his head as it was originally written. 

At one point, the narrator ruminates on the moments that occur just before someone dies. He's doing this in response to being made aware that a woman he got to know in a cancer support group has just died. He talks through the different functions of the body shutting down with an overlay of a countdown ("10  seconds. Nine. Eight. Seven...") to the moment where the person is clinically deceased. As I heard the words coming through the speakers of my truck, all I could think about was Damian's last moments where he transitioned from being alive to not being alive. I could see with my mind's eye the words I was hearing but was applying them to Damian. With it came a profound sadness that I wasn't with my son in his last moments. Was he frightened?

When the countdown reaches zero the narrator says something along the lines of "...and the soul leaves the body." Part of me wants to believe that Damian's soul is still in tact; his essence somewhere in the universe even if I can't see him any longer. This brings with it the hope that when I die I will once again see him or connect with him in some meaningful way. While I want this to be true, I don't think that it is. I think it more likely that when we die we are just gone and that our soul, whatever it is, dies with us. Basically that we go to sleep without dreaming and never wake up again. 

No, it's not a happy outlook but then death isn't happy is it? It just is. 

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