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Dead to Me
The Vignette Gazette Writer’s Prompt #277
Do you ever feel annoyed by all the euphemisms there are for the word dead? I do.
One of my least favourite is passed away. Passed away? It reminds me of the term passed over. Death isn’t a promotion, for chrissakes.
Or what about gone to their final rest? Hello? Proof please!
Then there’s gone over the rainbow. What does that mean? No more rain? Well, I guess not for the demised. The departed. Or the ones who’ve gone to a better place.
My top detested is six feet under. As in, he’s six feet under.
Makes me want to visit the cemetery and measure the depth of the hole myself.
Admittedly, I haven’t always been so cavalier about death. I remember with embarrassment a time we were on a bus — my eldest-born and I — and she asked, in that loud, clear and ringing voice of a young child. “Mummy why do people die?”
I hushed her quickly, promising to tell her when we got home — hoping she’d have forgotten by then.
She had.
My top fave is dead to me. At least it makes sense!
Talking about the dead, death, or dying is difficult. I think because we know so very little about it. Except that people we love disappear…
