Death by Collage

I say "collage" and you think art. I say "collage" and your mind races from the idea of splattering vivrant images all over the paper trying to express your individuality through your own random piece of...something. I hate to spoil your fruit but my "collage" is of the dead. Some are still thinking "art," most are thinking "no thanks." I started a long time ago, when I experienced my first death of a family member. It was my grandfather. He never spoke much and I found him to be rather strange. I was awe-stricken as I took in his distinctive cheek wrinkles and recounted the stories of my grandmother going upside his head with an iron during one of his many drunken stupors. His home was dark, smoky-and not because he smoked but because he never dusted, and it smelled like all the memories that lived there before had died. Despite our obvious disconnect and my discontentment for his dwelling, I was used to seeing him and sitting perfectly still on the edge of his couch for fear of touching anything. Sitting there at his funeral, watching the sobbing and rapid tissue exchanges, the closed eyes and faces of despair, solos sang in pleas for God to help....I cried harder than I'd ever had before, so much so that my uncle sent me packing and I relocated to the seat next to my mother. I realized then that I had definite issues with losing people. By the end of the day, I found it weird that everyone held on to the program from the funeral service...why would you want to be reminded of such a draining moment in life? But people do funny things and who am I not to be amused. So begins the collage. The recent passing of my great grandmother, who was a young 105 years old, brought about a different type of perspective than any I'd had before. I saw myself, 10 years from now, adding more and more faces to my collage and in that moment I felt transitional. No longer did I view my collage as a memoir or a creative way of tracking my past but I saw it's impact on my future. As my art is created, my foundation will be removed right from under me. All that I knew as I was planted in the soil to grow as the flower I am today will decay and things will never be as they were. I will be faced with pictures of people who are of significance to me yet they no longer exist in this realm, leaving me with fragile memories that will begin to rewrite themselves as time takes it's toll on my mind. The people, images, places, experiences that live in the walls of me will continue to fall down. What am I saying? My cornerstones are leaving, my constants are really variables. We depend on people more than we know. Even though we might not confide our affairs to them or even ask about their day, we get used to their presence so we notice when they are gone....sort of the same way we notice when someone moves the trashcan or borrows our jeans. What makes this evolution particularly troubling is the replacement process. I tell myself that those who leave are making room for newness, new people, new family, offspring, love, marriage, etc. Here's the deal though, people are leaving more frequently than they are being replaced and frankly I'm already wreary of losing. The prioritity of marriage and starting a family has risen like Jesus on the third day on my list of things to do in lieu of the reality that I have very little control over this aspect of life. Maybe I should stop looking for something that has the potential to take the very breath out of my body and settle for something comfortable. Or maybe I should follow in the footsteps of a female friend of mine and adopt children to be raised in a single-parent home. The single life is not so glamourous when you find yourself vacationing in the "no one to hold on to" resort. It gets complex when you've had to sit in the middle section of the church and march in with the family....alone. I was flooded with thoughts of how much more intense it will be when I am forced to sit in view of those closest to me laid-out across the front of someone's church. I can't imagine how it must've felt for my great-grandmother to walk down the aisle in honor of the death of all her children, her husband, her sisters, mother, father, even some grandchildren. I know the world has to seem like a much lonlier place. Could it be that this loneliness is an agent that prepares us for death? A necessary evil so to speak. My mind is heavy, I want a solution but answers evade me as I seek to fill the voids my loved ones continue to leave in my life. Collage expansion underway...