"Thoughts of the END"

Thoughts of the End

by:

Virgilio F. De leon Jr.

The end of a thing is always painful for me. For someone who prides himself in memories I have a lot of trouble letting go of the past and looking into the future. So when things end for me I don’t look at it as a phase in my life or a chapter that I had to live through , I look at it as an irreversible thing , when you flip the page and face the unknown those left on the previous pages will soon fade to memory and then to nothingness. There is a finality to it all that brings me sadness , like walking around your high school for the last time or savoring that last kiss of someone whom you will never see again. We were taught in Biochemistry that there are reversible and irreversible reactions , the mention of that word irreversible brings terror to my heart , it implicates things that can never be fixed , things that can never be retrieved when gone. I am afraid that if I blink people I know will no longer be there. That’s all it takes really , a solid friendship turning sour , an enemy becoming a friend , a lover being an ex , a parent dying. A blink of an eye and the world that was familiar to you no longer exists. Nobody prepares you for it , nobody ever wrote a manual on change and yet we continue to thrive on it don’t we? Change is good as well as bad. Losing ones mind or self is the greatest loss there can ever be.

     I remember watching a ghost busters episode when I was young , there was a bad ghost and a good ghost , the good ghost protected people and was well loved and in that episode the good ghost gave the ultimate sacrifice by holding the bad ghost at bay so it can be trapped. They were both captured in a trap and fused together as Egon Spengler explained. This frightened me. The loss of individuality. The loss of self. The loss of will. This is also the reason why the Borg were very interesting enemies in Star Trek for me, they would assimilate you till there was nothing of you left. Nothing of you left , that thought would just roll around and around my mind and I may forget it at times but it always rears it ugly head to annoy me.

     As a Doctor I was fascinated and scared by Psychiatry and Neurology. The working of the mind is wonderful and I found myself drawn to it , the shattering of the mind was an even darker draw. Day in and Day out I would see patients losing their minds to disease. All that vast knowledge of the human condition wasting away on a hospital bed. Pillars of Home and Society , decaying gradually from within , from the most important place that holds mans pride , His Mind.

     People unable to speak or understand what was said due to brain damage , people who at their best sang songs that lifted your heart , recited poems that made your heart soar and taught you wonders beyond imagining. All in a blink of an eye , gone. Merely a hollow version of themselves as they lived. Nerves will never regenerate or heal. Irreversible. Gone. I fear that it will come for all of us but for now I continue to observe it. Who knows what the future holds? Who knows if we can cheat the Shattering of our minds or the Renderings of our flesh? Who knows indeed? As I type the final words of this page I find myself sad as another thing ends.