My dad disappeared from this world.
What if cats disappeared? Or clocks too?
These are things I pondered when reading Genki Kawamura's 'If Cats Disappeared From The World', a moving tale of loss, grief, regret, and understanding what is most vital in life - it's meaning.
There are many messages in this beautiful novel, but one that struck me the most was the notion of interconnectedness: the way in which everything (even trivial things like a wildflower on the side of the pavement or a cup of coffee) intertwines, harbours a life of its own, and affects and brings meaning to people's lives. The protagonist eventually comes to realise that he cannot perpetually and constantly eviscerate other items from the world in exchange for his life. Kawamura reminds us that 'There is something just as inevitable as death. And that is life'. His death - all of our deaths - are inevitable. As difficult as it is to understand and come to terms with, it is so clearly true. I think we humans often wake up each morning, drink our coffee, routinely catch the train, work, and repeat this Groundhog Day machination of our lives constantly like there's an infinite tomorrow. We leave things to the future, pencil in dates and plans that may never cross our paths of time. We treat time like there's always more and more. We live like we are immortal and avoid thinking of dying. This is what makes the blow of loss even harder.
Nothing can prepare you for the shock of loss, but I recently realised that death was something that my dad to talked to us about. Although we didn't know he had cancer and he would go so soon, he was often in ill health, and we all knew he would never live to see his seventies. Looking back, even though my grief was just as hard as others and just as painful, having thought about these things in the past allowed me to find peace with this massive loss in my life quite quickly. This doesn't mean I don't mourn or feel pain, but it broke me out of the constant feeling of grief and back into some level of 'normality' (whatever that is) or calmness. Even the notion of 'normality', this human creation (of which Kawamura explores many in the book), this construct, hinders us from feeling happiness and ease with change. It is ironic that we create things that make us unhappy. We all know that life and the world is constantly changing, so how is there ever 'normality'? When there is a change, we are then hardwired to think that it is wrong, out of balance, not 'normal', which then floods feelings of unease into our lives. The absence of my dad felt out of the 'norm'. On a small scale, yes - he is no longer present in this world. Yet, is it really out of the norm? Looking at the bigger picture, it was going to happen one day - the cycle of life catches up with all of us.
This is why I believe it is so important to have these conversations. To talk about death is to talk about life, about being human, and may help us to be more at ease with this inevitable fact of life and to appreciate the here and now more.
“Love has to end. That's all. And even though everyone knows it they still fall in love.”
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