Those who die...

I went to the bank today to ask whether my new Visa card will be sent here or to Bergen. A few hours later, while coming out of the shower, I thought of the guy at the bank who died a few years ago.

I have been to four funerals.

When I was 10 my grandmother died of a heart attack. We went up north to the island during Easter to be there for the funeral. I don't remember much, other than we were sitting far back in the church and one of my cousins put a rose on the casket when they had lowered it into the ground. A week earlier, when my mother answered the phone, I knew what had happened before anyone told me. It was the first time someone I knew had died.

When I was about 13 our next door neighbour died. He was this friendly guy who liked his boat, used to be a sailor and had dark green tattoos on his arms. His wife and he had four kids, all grown up. He died while being out on the lake with his boat, the autopsy showed he most likely suffered a heart attack or something similar, feel overboard and wasn't able to get up. His boat was going in circles on the lake, someone got worried and went out to check. Someone told me people were gathered by the lake looking at the boat and it might be our neighbour's. Bad feeling.

When I was 15 the father of a friend of mine died. He had a drinking problem, his wife and two dauthers had moved out. All the girls in my class had been asked to sing in a teacher's daughter's wedding and we were all gathered at the church to rehearse early in the morning. My friend wasn't there, we all knew her father was in the hospital. Someone must have known he died that night, but no one said it. We all felt it. He died from a heart attack and was found by his wife. She'd been calling him but didn't get an answer, got worried and drove over. She found him next to the phone.

In 2001, when I was 16, my grandfather died. We went to the island and said our goodbyes, sitting on the very first row in the church. I told my mum when we got there "we're not sitting in the back", remembering my grandmother's funeral. "No" said my mother, "we're not." He died from a heart attack after being in hospital a few times. He loved travelling and sent all his (at the time) 17 grandchildren t-shirts every time he went somewhere. I didn't hear the phone ring that time, like I did when my grandmother died. My mum came to my room, knocked on my door, and I knew before I opened it. I was angry. I always get angry when I'm sad, and sad when I'm angry. I went for a walk in the freezing February air. Tears turned to ice if they weren't so warm. From one heart to another.


I was thinking about the guy in the bank. I only go to the bank once or twice a year, never really need to go there when I have my Visa card and can log onto my accounts on the net. I guess that's why it always seems like I just saw him the last time I was there. I think it's been two years since he died, walking home with some people, he fell off an old bridge. I didn't think of it when I was there, at the bank, but I always think about it afterwards. There's a guy that kinda looks like him, earlier I used to think they were the same person. But it's never him, and that's strange.

Maybe it's like that with people you just talk to when you need something, you don't know them you just know who they are and they know who you are. You don't notice when they die. When I was in France, one evening when my mum called, she said this woman had died from breast cancer. She was my mother's friend, my sister's nanny when she was a baby, my brother's friend's mother, our neighbours's grandmother. It was sad and for some reason it just got to me. When I got home I thought I saw her on the street several times but of course I never did.

When I was a kid, there was this man all the kids were scared of. Not really scared just... well, however kids get when others tell stories about people. He didn't have a job, just walked around, drinking a bit more than he should. My friend once told me he was so tall, he could see over the electricity lines(?) and could see us all the time. I didn't believe her but we were so young our own stories would scare us. He was hit by a car one night, standing in the middle of the road in total darkness.

People die. Sometimes it affects us more than we'd like to admit, other times we don't feel much and think we're strange for not feeling more. Like with the guy at the bank. He was a nice guy. He had glasses and a mustache and probable knew the name and account number of ever person in town. The kinda guy everybody liked. I only remember he's gone whenever I go to the bank. And it surprises me every time.

It's people like that who will live forever in the hearts of others. It doesn't take much. Just a friendly smile and a good heart. It's sad though... When I think of people like him, I wonder what comes after this. After life. If anything at all. It just seems so pointless sometimes, why do people have to die for no reason at all? I used to think that there's a reason, if someone dies it was meant that way. But if it happens to someone close to you, you can never believe that. I still want to believe there's a reason for everything, but I can't believe in something just because I want to. Just because it makes it easier.


Some say death is a part of life. Some say we have to accept it, saying it's the ultimate sacrifice someone makes because they want to make the world a better place. Some just die because... because it was an accident? People kill people. We'll all die some day. All we can do is hope we'll still be around for a while. And that our loved ones will be here with us.

Life is life.
What is death?