As If They Knew Him

As if they knew him. My uncle. That he lay dying today. Like a long visible thunderclap over the grey sky. A loud recognition of his life ebbing away. They came as if they knew him. How odd, I thought. I wished he could’ve seen them. But then again, his eyes might have been shut already. I got up and took this picture from my bedroom window, thinking of this. What would he have thought? If the last sounds he ever heard were the sounds of jet-engines?

How strange. One among so many, a normal man, a sailor, familiar with the seven seas. And later, a railway man when the railway still meant something. And then this, this parade of power, technology and might, rolling over my head, sitting here thinking of him, in that hospital room so far away.

When they were gone the usual noise of my neighbours resurfaced. I thought about my mother standing next to him. I thought about the few puffs of air leaving him like seeds from a dandelion, like they had left his brother, only last year. I tried to imagine the fluffy things filling up the room around him where he lay, surrounded by the rest of our small family.

It made me cry to think like that. Too much poetry to handle right now, I thought, and took my raincoat and went out for a walk. Too much emotion to handle right now. I couldn’t face it. But it wasn’t enough for him. I knew that. It wasn’t enough at all. To make up for a whole life.