Awareness
In a later book in the Harry Potter series we discover that
the carriages for the school are not drawn by magic alone, but rather by Thestrals,
which are described as carnivorous, horse-like creatures which can only be seen
by those who have witnessed death. This
subtle reference to the dramatic change that being fully aware of death brings
to an individual is insightful and moving.
I grew up with a dying parent. My birth seems to have coincided with his
descent into his lengthy terminal status, lending my life, as my mother
described, a perceived responsibility and association with his death. An intriguing life partnership for a three
year old; if we live with our “inner child,” mine sees Thestrals. This was normal for me, as I believe it was
for most children of the generation before mine who grew up without vaccines or antibiotics, and a childhood death rate which was high.
Both my parents survived Tuberculosis. By the age of five, my mother was one of two surviving children of the
six with whom she played. She suffered
countless bouts of pneumonia in her childhood and my father survived a typhus
infection. In my childhood, we lived with my father’s
“imminent death” for eleven years. I
have his disease, so far I have outlived him by fourteen years, double the
years he outlived his mother.
Seeing death, being aware of one’s own mortality, can change
a person’s perspective. Some become more
fearful. In my birth family, we fight, but we are
accepting. We have battled the illness each
of us thought would kill us at a young age: fought valiantly and won temporary,
life-style and life altering, victories.
The drugs we take change some of our abilities and we must accept those
limitations along with the freedoms returned to us. We know, however that our time is
borrowed. We do not truly win, our
disease does; it always wins. Therefore
winning, becomes the inversion of Thestrals; elusive in the face of death,
meaningless and laughable.
Sometimes this understanding presents itself as a blank look
on a person’s face. Some become daredevils,
others cautious so as to not tempt fate.
The process takes time and like grief has stages of recognition and comprehension. Sometimes we suspend our knowledge to be
sociable, but it lingers, invisible, in the brain and soul. There is no erasure of awareness, but life is
richer, deeper and more visceral when you have knocked on the door, crossed the
river and then, somehow, returned to spring.
Spring is a new beginning.
I joke that I am eight because that is the age of my transplant. As my
brother faces the rejection of his transplanted organ and the hopeful prospect
of a second transplant to extend his life, so valued by so many, the visibility
of a carriage bearing magical creature is greater than it was only a month ago. He and I carry spring inside us, but death and
his Thestral are always by our side.
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