So the blues hit me again. Can you tell I’m a melancholic one? ‘Cause I sure can tell. My main thought for the past couple of weeks has been death. Not in the “I want to die” kind of department, but it seemed that everything I read or saw or heard of reminded me of the fragility of life.

In the music department, I’ve been obsessed with the lyrics of a couple of songs reminiscing of death. The Smiths have There Is a Light That Never Goes Out that so beautifully says:

And if a double-decker bus
Crashes into us
To die by your side
Is such a heavenly way to die
And if a ten ton truck
Kills the both of us
To die by your side
Well, the pleasure, the privilege is mine.

And then there’s Death Cab for Cutie’s superbe lyrics that go:

If Heaven and Hell decide that they both are satisfied
Illuminate the no’s on their vacancy signs
If there’s no one beside you when your soul embarks
Then I’ll follow you into the dark.

What a miracle music is, right? It can make even death sound good. These songs, I must admit, have a Romeo and Juliet vibe to it because of the idea of couples dying together. But that’s not quite doable, only if you live in The Notebook or in Amour. Even though I’m approaching my thirtieth birthday, something about meeting a person you’d die with still fascinates me. To love someone so much, that life without them is just pointless.

In the movie department, we need to talk about 1883. A prequel to the captivating Yellowstone series, this one season show depicts the journey of a family from Tennessee to Montana, in the 1880’s. It made me finally understand why the Wild West was called so. I always believed it was because of the flora and fauna, because of the deserts and mountains and rivers and snakes and coyotes and everything in between. But no, it was because of the people. Damn, they were wild and free. No guarantees of food or shelter or even the next day. Exhilarating and free this Wild Wild West! The main character, Elsa, had a life I kinda of envy. She lived a short one, but she managed to fill it with love, passion, freedom and courage. She faced death as we all should, smiling and at peace. We all strive for freedom but if we were to get it, many of us wouldn’t have the faintest idea what to do with it. Elsa Dutton knew.

Yesterday I watched A Man Called Otto, a movie with Tom Hanks that is the American remake of the Swedish A Man Called Ove, adapted after the book with the same title by Fredrik Backman. Otto or Ove is a furious man, grieving the loss of his wife by bickering, yelling and insulting his neighbors. As his attempts to kill himself fail one after another, his protective walls fall as he lets his neighbors in and becomes friendlier and more vulnerable. A heart warming story about love, mourning, life and death.

In the book department, I just finished Genki Kawamura’s If Cats Disappeared From The World, the story of a young man facing death and the devil himself. For every thing he is willing to make disappear from the world, the devil grants him another day. A modern day Faust, you might say or a gentler and kinder The Devil’s Advocate. Nonetheless, a great read. As I felt reading Faust or The Master and Margarita, meeting the devil, even if it’s just in the pages of some books, is not an easy business. This character always has something sly and mysterious about him, even if he’s dressed in a suit or in a Hawaiian shirt.

An honorable mention has to be Meet Joe Black. Even though I haven’t seen it in a while, Brad Pitt as death itself is a match made in Heaven (pun intended). His charm, his looks, his mimic, his gestures, everything about Brad Pitt in this movie makes him the perfect death. He is so attractive and so intriguing, it is hard to say no. And Anthony Hopkins’ character has the perfect approach to dying as one might wish. Furious at first, nostalgic in the middle and at peace in the end.

After all these encounters with death, I realized that we are more afraid of pain and illness than of death itself. The death of our close ones will surely hurt us more than our own and, lastly, people are not afraid of dying, they are just afraid of not living.