De mortis nihil nisi bene, my ass.

The funeral will be held next Thursday. My mother arranged them quickly enough, as if she was burying the shame along with my father. She has always kept saying how suicide is so very selfish; I doubt the latest events have changed her opinion that much.

I'm doing great, a bit too great considering that my father just died (we still don't know the exact time of death, we have to wait for the autopsy results; my life resembles a C.S.I. episode...).

"De mortis nihil nisi bene"... sorry, Kheilon, but I disagree. Just because someone is dead doesn't mean the living have to start glorifying them. If they were assholes when they were alive, being dead doesn't change that in any way. Actually, I feel rather relieved (as do many others, as I've found out lately). I don't feel the least guilty or responsible for his decision. Nor do I judge it, either; suicide is "prepared within the silence of the heart, as is a great work of art" (Albert Camus). And how could I judge it since I once seriously wanted to die myself? I planned my suicide thoroughly but never carried it out; instead I settled on hurting myself otherwise. I think I still have that suicide paper somewhere; my suicide methodology hasn't changed at all over the past seven years, although I still don't know where to get cyanide. My suicide would have been partly due to my parents, partly due to my school conditions (I think my schoolmates would have lovingly referred to me as "freak" or "loser" or "jerk weed"). Therefore I assume that my father's motives also included some of our family life, and possibly that of his own when he was a child. I just don't feel guilty because I know that my part is just one small particle of all the things that made him decide to end his life, that changing my part wouldn't have changed this outcome.

I know someone would undoubtedly consider the following the worst possible thing to say, but I think that his suicide was best for all in one way or another. This takes away the worry we all felt all the time, of his well-being as well as that of ourselves. As I said before, I feel relieved: now I don’t have to worry about the immediate effects of the alcoholism to my mother, and especially to my brother since now the reason he tried to kill himself is gone. But most importantly, this was the solution for my father; I suppose he really didn't see any way out of the situation he was in, or maybe he didn't even want to get out of. Maybe the way would have meant conquering so many difficult obstacles that he didn't consider it worth the trouble.

In any case, this is what he wanted to do, and so he did. In a way I'm happy for him; he was pressured to do something else with his life than, I assume, he would have wanted. His whole life there was always someone telling him what to do: his parents and rest of the family, then my mother... Even if it meant this, it's good that he got to do at least one thing completely on his own, decide for himself. The rest of us have to accept it, even if we didn't understand it completely.

I just finished re-reading (for X times now) the novel "Loppuunkäsitelty" by Anna-Leena Härkönen. It tells about her own experiences after the year following her sister's suicide. I've liked the book since I first read it two years ago; now I find much consolation in it, and understanding. I find someone who has thought of the same things and asked the same questions I have, only contemplating them from a different point of view and mental (as well as ideological) background than me. I also have Antonella Gambotto's "The Eclipse" (it's one my to-be-read list next), and currently I'm reading Simone de Beavoir's "Les Belles Images". That one is very nicely written; it took me ten pages to realise that both the third person and the first person narrators are one and the same person, Laurence. And besides... it's de Beauvoir.

Which reminds me... do I get a day off from work but also get paid due to a fneral of a close relative?

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I finally got my hands on 'Hadal'. It is as good as I thought it would be. For some reason the change Velcra has gone through for this album isn't anywhere near the shock Sonata Arctica's transformation caused. My current number one is –without a doubt– 'White Knuckle Mountains'. Other good pieces are the first single 'Quick and Dirty' ("Never too rich. Never too thin. Never too young. Never ever perfect"), 'New Recruit' (as I thought on 29th ) and the ballad-like 'Dusk Becomes Dawn'. It's so beautiful. "So good that I have known you, loved you, held you before we had to go." In general it is difficult to categorise 'Hadal' as a clear metal album since there is no live drums in the entire record and even metal guitars are absent most of the time. But let it be noted that not once did I seriously miss Frey's screams (only once, temporarily, during the first round of listening to 'Hadal').

I think this is the point in which I need to get Velcra to accompany my band shirt collection.

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The Meme of the Day:
I'll continue circling around this subject, so bear with me… http://www.okcupid.com/tests/take?testid=18341387181249439036.

"You are suicide method #1345: Dark, cold, scary and painful. You are suicide via drowning. People have to plan a little before they come to you for help. You're not as easy to employ as some, but you spark the imagination like few other forms of relief can. At your best, you're a pocket full of rocks and a head full of determination. At worst, you're a Baywatch castmember hellbent on saving people from making their own choices. Only a selected few have what it takes to make use of your talents, and those few don't mind a significant amount of discomfort before greeting the void."

Nope, I wouldn't drown myself. Nice try, but way off.

The picture below is from the cemetery of the town Pietrasanta in Tuscany, Italy. It memorializes a young man who drowned in 1922, at the age of 23.
The hard marble is carved into breaking waves, flowing over the skull. The victim's bony fingers are submersed in the water, grasping at the waves, as he tries to pull himself out. Absolutely beautiful piece of art. And people actually wonder why I find cemetaries inspiring places.

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Post scriptum: Why is it that I'm just really, truly, bluely incapable of writing short entries?