Dying

How will it feel when I am dying?

Will I see “good memories, grateful memories, memories of summer afternoons, memories of having been loved, memories of having been given things, and gratitude that I had also given something back”, like Oliver Sacks?

Will I feel guilt for wasting the time of people who cared for me, who could have used that time to have a new life… as my grandpa felt for my grandma, for her staying with him through a decade in the hospital?

Will I look forward to what world is next?

Will I feel nothing, because there is no time for me to prepare or realize that it is happening?

Will I taste breath differently?

Will I be sad?

Will I be regretful?

Will I be in pain?

Will I be just like a leaf, whose dead body I step on and get transformed into nutrients by slime moulds?

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After visiting New York during Friendsgiving, I returned to Chapel Hill in late November. In the Chinese 24 solstices, the time is called “Minor Snow” (小雪), when people usually start fermenting vegetables and sealing windows with paper.

The needles from the Long-Needle Pine mostly fell. They pile up in mountains between the lab and the microscope room. The cleaning aunties said there was too much to sweep. Any swept pile would soon get dispersed back by the wind.

After my imaging session, I went out and scooped the needles into shapes of people lying on the ground. There is a mother holding an egg, like how my mom used to cradle my sister on the sofa.

There is a fairy that fell from the tree.

There is a drunk guy who I remember from a photo of the Tokyo subway station in the morning.

The cleaning aunties kept this leaf person when they made another round of sweeping.

Over the course of a week, the person slowly melted.

When I am dying, will I feel like a leaf?