Death Experience: A Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

Death Experience

A Poem by Rainer Maria Rilke

We know nothing of this going away, that
so excludes us. We have no grounds

for showing Death wonderment and love

or hate, since it wears a fantastic mask

of tragic lament that astonishingly disfigures.
Now the world is still full of roles which we play
as long as we make sure, that, like it or not,
Death plays, too, although he does not please us.

But when you left, a streak of reality broke
upon the stage through the very opening
where you vanished: Green, real green,
real sunshine, real forest.

We go on acting. Picking up gestures
now and then, and anxiously reciting
that which was difficult to learn; 

but you're far away,
removed out of our performance,

it sometimes overcomes us, like 

a knowledge of reality settling in. ,
so that for a while we only play at Life,
not thinking of any applause.


Rainer Maria Rilke

First Stanza of the Poem

Parting:

How I have felt that thing that's called 'to part',
and feel it still: a dark, invincible,
cruel something by which what was joined so well
is once more shown, held out, and torn apart.

You Are Made of Time, Which Never Ceases

Brendan, Corinne, Aunt Amy & Uncle Julio

A Favorite Short Video of Brendan by Jason Miller

I think this is my very Favorite Short Video of Brendan filmed by Jason Miller. It looks like it was filmed quite a few years ago.

https://www.facebook.com/milla.time.31/videos/1810806855616307/?t=6


Another sweet one that Brendan sent to his Aunt Amy on February 14, 2013

https://www.facebook.com/brendan.l.leung/videos/4193923457989/UzpfSTY4ODc2MDI5ODoxMDE1Nzc1ODgyODYzMDI5OQ/


Another Jason Miller Clip of Brendan:
https://www.facebook.com/brendan.l.leung/videos/10210318430028753/

Love Song With No End

Love Song With No End...The 6th Month Mark…The Eternal Void

Dedicated to Brendan Lai-Wing Leung

All the senses engaged. All the senses miss you.

I describe your ‘beingness’ as akin to a variety of spices from every culture on the earth….. Flavors, aromas, in a myriad of combinations, that no one has thought to put together before, that’s you!

Your black hair, slight curl, streak of whitish grey, as if just the faintest trace of star dust gathered in 12 strands of your hair.
Full lips, where did you get them? Somehow they don’t go with your fine features and yet they do……

One day you’re boyish, the next day you’re an old man.
One day your solemnly contemplative another your exuberant embracing your friends,
Skateboard: riding high on the wind….determined, angry, determined, angry...which is it? I can’t tell.
Oh that’s right, depending on which way the rays of the sun reflect off your face.


Mind drifting….but where? Your thoughts?
I think I know but I can’t follow them;
because you’re already somewhere deep. Somewhere…
Your soul talking to you in another language that you’re trying to understand.

You’re out of step with the world; in your own dimension….
and none of us knows where that dimension lies.
We sense it though, it’s a mystery that draws us to you,
yet so unfamiliar are we that our own thoughts can’t touch it.

Our own thought waves can’t meet yours,
Our souls understand one another but there are no words;
no human words for that place where we could talk if we had them.
But we don’t have them….

How then shall we communicate. How shall we communicate?
Connecting stars, thought waves….
weightlessness, and gravity;
weightlessness, then gravity….


___________________________________________________________________________



You’re maneuvering with edgy skills,
contemplating,
absorbed, 

free thinking,
independent mind.
In your world, no one else's.

There is no time... no time, 

just freedom and forever.
Freedom and forever….

Baggy pants, cinched at the waist. Belt buckled at the tightest setting.
Shirtless in the universe
You’re forever, forever, forever…

It is normal to have regrets when a loved one dies. Things that we wish we would have said or done. I already knew this. Everyday I ask myself, "What do I wish I had done or not done for or with Brendan?"  I had been planning to ask him to watch this video for months and months before his death. He and I loved British TV.  I figured that because Alan de Botton has such a charming British voice, that Brendan actually might sit for 3 minutes and watch this.

Early on in our relationship Brendan said, "I don't know WHAT you SEE in ME?"  I've written plenty about my love for Brendan. I wonder what he would think of this short video.....If he is indeed present in my life and can still "visit" our world, then I would hope that he would be watching this over my shoulder......

Link to the short Video I Was Planning To Have Brendan Watch......

The Transcript......by Alain de BottonOstensibly we all want love. But oddly, one of the hardest things to do is not
hold it against people when they do actually turn around and reciprocate our feelings.
It can be immensely hard not to think that those who offer us love are in some ways weak, mistaken, needy, craven or just defective. 
It can feel a lot easier when love was unrequited and our primary preoccupation was a thrilling dread that the admired person hadn't even noticed us. 
But now there's finally no doubt anymore, it's really clear they do like us, and something troubling has arisen.  We're feeling a bit sick, we're tempted to say we got them wrong. They can't be the admirable people we thought they were.  But the issue isn't really to do with them at all. It lies somewhere else entirely in our relationship with ourselves.
Their affection seems suspicious, incomprehensible and a touch repulsive, because at some level this isn't what we're used to.
It doesn't tally with our view of ourselves. Love can be hard to receive when we're not fundamentally convinced of our own love ability. We spend our time seeking out those who can make us suffer in ways that feel familiar.
It becomes natural to assume that a kind lover has missed something. Perhaps then to try to behave in disgusting ways just to make sure they understand we're really not who they thought we were. 
In short, how could anyone be so great if they have the bad taste to think well ofsomeone like us?  
But we have to allow ourselves to entertain another option. Perhaps this affection we're receiving is not a sign that our kind lover is weak, or wrong, or has no other options. 
Perhaps it's a sign that they've seen something in US which poignantly and tragically we don't yet quite see in ourselves;  and have never been allowed to believe in by figures in our past. 
That we are deserving of love.  
There is hope in all this.  Hope that we can come to trust our lovers more than we trust our own first nervous self-destructive impulses.
We can interpret their love not as a sign of their delusion or weakness, but as evidence of an inherent lovability in ourselves, to which our past histories have blinded us; yet to which their love and tenderness can now awaken us.  
We don't, invariably, have to hold it against others when they see some point in us.