Tears in the face of death
A friend of mine and I spoke about the deaths we had experienced till this day. I’ve experienced four deaths of people my age more or less close to me. My friend has experienced one death and that really recently.
A commonality in our experiences was that at some point after learning about the deaths a moment filled with tears took place. For my friend, pretty randomly, while listening to music at work, a few days after learning about it and for me when speaking about it, to people that I care about.
Death is weird and tears are even more weird. What is it about death that makes us cry?
I recently found a passage in a book called “Connections” by Karl Deisseroth giving a wonderful perspective on tears of joy and tears of sadness.
He explains: “Tears come when we feel hope and frailty together, as one.”
People we love and care about form the world we perceive ourselves living in. When someone we love dies it shakes up the perceived structure of our world and we suddenly realise how fragile it is. At the same time talking about it to a loved one or simply sitting down with music and thinking about it is a process of re-mapping the future without the deceased person. That’s hope and fragility in one, coming together in the face of death.