The Death of an Old Man is Not a Tragedy

i should have known better. i really should have. i should know better than to belong to a site like okcupid.com in the first place. but my masochistic streak runs strong, and i surf the net in search of, if not love, at least some easy entertainment. those of you familiar with my love of toying with people, psychologically breaking them apart like a clock, gleefully scattering the pieces about the area, and then becoming bored and moving on, will understand what i'm talking about.

at any rate, okc has a blog feature. i rarely use it. only when i feel the need to say something controversial and stir up trouble. see behavior pattern above. but when kurt vonnegut died recently, i was quite distraught, so i posted a quick sort of public service announcement saying he had passed, and that i was very, very sad about it.

the next time i logged on, someone had written their own blog entry, loosely based on mine, i like to think. it has been lodged in my brain and my craw since then, this blog entry. loosely paraphrased, it said yes, kurt vonnegut is dead, yes its sad, but he'd been ill (he fell in his apartment several days before he passed, injuring his head, hence his passing at all), and why do people feel the need to decry the passing of old men, well past their prime and livers of rich and full lives.

it would be far too polite to say that this drew my ire.

i was, and still am, fucking livid.

"the death of an old man is not a tragedy." so said virginia madsen's "angel of death" in the movie "a prairie home companion." in the end, i have to agree. kurt's passing was not the snipping of a rose in the prime of its glory. he was old, his body burned to a husk like a meteorite passing through atmosphere. the skin about his neck and jaw were slack and loose in the way of many old men and women. his eyes were sunken, and he was frail frail frail. physically, a whisper of a man. a gorgeous intellect swathed in thrift store clothes too big for his spare frame.

but he was kurt. he was my kurt. and to me, this isn't a matter of when death should come, and what deaths are worth more or fewer tears. this is the loss of a great treasure of this earth. it is the silencing of a voice and pen that could move me to weep, to laugh through tears at the folly of this stupid world, and the ridiculousness of we little people. it is the snuffing of a candle that i used for guidance through the madness.

part of it is the old fallacy, of course. what if i had met kurt vonnegut? and what if we had hit it off, and become great friends? perhaps we would have played chess in a coffee shop every thursday, drinking strong dark java and commiserating about the state of the world. perhaps we would have found each other to be kindred spirits in a way, despite our differences in age and experience. we could have sat on a park bench, killing ourselves with expensive tobaccos and sighing together at the sadness of this life.

well, i never met kurt vonnegut. as far as i know, i never came close to meeting him. and maybe we would have gotten along, and maybe we wouldn't have. and i fucking hate chess, though i force myself to play it at times in a vain attempt to acquire any skill at it, whatsoever.

but i read his words. i took them into my heart, and into my head. they meshed with cogs and wheels already within me, and created new ones. whole new circuits and mechanisms were layed, groundwork for future growth and the sites of future additions, modifications, subroutines and ticking gears. kurt's works were a consciousness-expanding event for me, and he was a gentle guide, and a caring teacher, willing to give of himself that i might become more than i was.

i suppose i could write more pretty words about it all, but it occurs to me that it is simple selfishness at its core. i don't want kurt vonnegut to be dead.

i don't meet many people who make sense to me, who smile while the band plays on. i don't know many people who make war ridiculous in its wanton destruction, and then with a turn of phrase, pierce me to the heart. i don't know many people who make me feel that i'm not insane, that i'm not the only one. i don't know many people who make light of human tragedy, only because to hurt any more would be to break. and now he is dead, and i never will meet him, and i never would have anyway. but the thought, the strange, lottery-like, one in a million chance that it COULD happen, and that kurt vonnegut could save me... now i don't even have that.

and i feel like a ship missing a sail.

and i miss kurt vonnegut.

and even if he never died, it would still be too soon.