Hey everyone. This is Joe, Mr. Tpen’s good friend (and my brother from another mother - I love you auntie!). Anyway, this will be my first post on Mr. Tpen’s fine blog…I’m hoping there’ll be more to come. I tend to go rather deep with my stuff and so I won’t post all the time…but ask anyone in the department of Tpenology and they’ll tell you that this is more so my forte. So without further delay:

Monday, September 03, 2007

I use to believe that funerals were the biggest rip off of any of the big human ceremonies. People live for many years to come, unnoticed by the world in the passing of time. Then suddenly they pass on and we gather on a single day to mourn in all the memories that person had been and all those days we had to share with them but didn’t. I’m not sure if I can accept that anymore. Even if there were days we never saw them, there are people whose presence is felt beneath the great weight they have in our lives. For us, it is the accumulation of this substance which comes to a head on this day we’ve come together. The sum of that person’s effect in our lives become compressed and, in my eyes, overcomes our own vanity of wishing to have been there more. The sum of thoughts…feelings…emotion; what life that person imprinted on our hearts seems to spark and shine in immolation. And painting a picture of this fire burning inside is reflected on the sorrow on our faces. When you close your eyes and think of this person, if nothing else…not on the sorrow but the fragments of time in which it meant something more dear to have known him or her than the pain of having lost them forever. When you close your eyes and wonder, those of you who barely knew that person or not at all – think, as you will, of what human essence is eternally parted from us: hopes, dreams, desires, accomplishments, failures, anguish, triumph, as is what it is to live and not of how little impact this may have on you to have so been spared the pain of loss. We are granted a stronger sense, a more profound appreciation for our fellow man in every passing – and this is death’s gift. And it is for this reason we cherish life – not cling to it. We respect its passing – not condemn it. Life gives us value, weight, and substance. It is substantial in the vacuity of existence. In return…simply “being” is made more.