Stranger than We Realize by C. L. Schneider

Prompt: stranger than we realized

​We think Death comes as a stranger, but no. Death visits like the weird family member that we try to avoid, because Death, like family, is unmoved by our preferences. A cherished pet passes and our tears disturb their unmoving fur. A child grasps Death’s hand before the parents can wave goodbye. A wife lets go of her partner and slips into Death’s arms. Is Death a stranger then? No; we may take Death for a stranger, but we eventually grow to realize that like family, Death is always present, able to visit when needed.
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Sometimes Death visits unexpectedly like a surprise 

birthday party: the lights suddenly illuminate a garnished table and boisterous ado. Sometimes Death comes in terror – not as terror, but within terror –an awakening out of a nightmare when Life’s embrace breaks. And sometimes, like a watchful friend who reaches out, Death comes silently. We imagine and plan Death’s approach, but like the proverbial weird uncle, Death’s visits are stranger than we could ever realize.

We – sister, mother, hospice nurse, and me – gathered around the bed. Each minute was a geologic age; each hour, a precipice to be avoided. My father’s breaths grew shallower as he sank deeper into blessed unconsciousness. Death waited, and we, conscious of Death’s awkward presence, kept watch. With each exhale: was this the last, the final handclasp of Life? Then finally: one exhale, and nothing. We looked across the bed at each other, questions on our faces. “Is that it?” came a whispered anxiety across a small eternity of waiting. Was our joking, Life-loving, sickness-harried father-husband-patient gone from us? We paused, breathless.

Suddenly, my father’s chest moved: inhale, exhale. Then nothing. Death’s arms opened, and like a loving family member, Death gifted us with an unexpected burst of laughter. “That would be like Dad,” we quipped. “His final joke on us.”

Then tears erupted like the outpouring of glacial lakes, etching through bedrock and erasing mountains. Death, who we thought a stranger, had become intimate, someone closer than breath, something harder than heartbeat. Death was part of our Family now. Life clung desperately to our sweating hands, while Death quietly carried away our father-husband-patient like a beloved child.

We tend to treat Death as a stranger, and Life as known; and sometimes the opposite. But they are both ordinary, both as close as breath and heartbeat. Like children, we are passed from the loving embrace of one to the other. We often have tears when holding Life’s hand, but sometimes, like the weird uncle, we can have laughter when Death visits. And there is nothing that exists in either that is stranger than we can realize.

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C.L. Schneider is a scientist by day, dancer by night, and a writer in the times she can fit in between. Most of the words she writes are about paleontology, geology, and marine biology, but sometimes she comes out of the lab and the dance studio to try something new.