I die without you

James H
Posts: 1276
Joined: Tue 20 Jul, 2004 14.49
Location: In your endo

It’s 1am and I’m still awake, the aftershow blues still taking their time to leave me alone, and yet I feel strange. There are a few things that are consuming me at the moment, and they are things that I can’t leave alone. One of those things is death (very morbid indeed). For those who didn’t know, I’ve just finished an all-too-short run of the musical ‘Rent’, a story about a group of friends, some of whom are HIV-positive, and some of whom have AIDS. The story of the show borrows heavily from ‘La Boheme’ by Puccini, yet when it first came onto the New York Theatre Workshop back in 1996, it was an almost instant success, partially due to the discussion of a taboo subject, and partially due to the wonderful, beautiful music by its unfortunately departed composer and writer, Jonathan Larson, who died the morning of the piece’s first public performance.

Performing in this musical has affected me more than I thought it ever could. It has left me with a very powerful feeling that I can’t shake off. When I first started rehearsing the show, I had very little idea what it would entail, yet now, having been through the emotional rollercoaster of Collins, the philosophy teacher, I am left with a very contemplative mind. It set me researching various things. One of which is a subject I have very little real knowledge about – HIV/AIDS.

My first stops are the usual ones – World Aids Day, the National Aids Trust, and of course, Wikipedia. But it’s not enough just to know what the disease is. In ‘Rent’, Collins and Angel visit a group called ‘Life Support’, a take on the real life group Friends In Deed in New York, where Jon Larson spent hours researching his piece. 1am being too late to walk into a support group, instead I looked on the internet for AIDS support forums. I find heartbreaking stories, such as this one:

“I am crying as I'm writing this letter to you . My close friend had HIV since 1987 and AIDS since 1993 . He had severy neuropathy in his feet and could not walk . He has battled lymphoma twice , PCP two times , crypto , MAC and many other infections during the course of his disease . His medications stopped working and he was told he was resistant to most drugs . Last week he took an overdose of percotte and died in his sleep . He was a lovely man ,a warm caring human being . He had a great sense of humor and he was kind and compassionate . His smile was beautiful . Please Please tell me he didnt go to Hell . We were taught growing up that was Gods punishment for leaving in despair and rage . Can't God overlook the final act and instead see into the heart of the person , and the love he brought to this place while he was alive? Please Help me . “

This story, however, touched me enough to write to you:

“My partner was recently taken from this earth by cancer that was somehow related to AIDS.
He had great difficulty accepting that after death there would something other than darkness and aloneness. He became incapacitated before we could speak about this fear. There were two ministers who prayed with us, and I know he was conscious during our prayers, although he was called "semi-comatose." He indicated he was pleased when one of the chaplains entered the room.
I'm now struggling with my beliefs about what happened to him after his body quit functioning. What happened to the energy? Was he aware on some level? Was his soul in the room? Was he feeling what his body was doing? Was he at peace? Was God with him?

He opened his eyes very wide the morning he died. he had not opened his eyes in 2 1/2 days prior. His eyes were so wide, he seemed to look at us, although his pupils were different in each eye and each seemed to move independent of eachother. He slowly closed his eyes after about 5 minutes. He died 2 hours later. I believe opening his eyes, he was indicating that he wanted to say good-bye, or maybe saw something so beautiful, he wanted to open his eyes. I don't know.

Looking for answers.

Please respond.”

I want your thoughts. I know there are quite a few gay men or women on this board, but sex is irrelevant to me; I want to know whether the issue affects you as much as it seems to affect me now.

Finally, I’d like to leave you with an excerpt from the film version of the show. It’s a song called ‘Without You’, and I defy you not to be moved by it.

J x
cdd
Posts: 2633
Joined: Fri 15 Aug, 2003 14.05

Now why did you let that ronnie character rant under your name when you had thought provoking stuff up your sleeve! Not so you'd shine in comparison surely ;-)

It's too late at night for me to apply much brainpower to this. Alls I'll say is you can't go through life thinking about things like this more than in passing. It's best not to worry about the things you can't change, and as things you can't change go, death is pretty high up there. Similarly existential thoughts are fun, but they always lead down that path in the end so they're better avoided. If you want an existential question though, how about the inverse of the one that it it is so cliche to pose - I.e. Rather than "what are we after we die", consder "what were we before  we were born"? Lots of interesting thoughts down that route, including the assumption that the two states (of unborn-ness and death) are the same. Clearly you can't experience the former, nor can it have been unpleasant. the other thought I always have re this is that everyone makes the mistake of thinking abou death from the first person. But if you don't believe in an afterlife, that makes no sense: you can't experience nothing. Trying to understand what nothing feels like is like trying to understand the sound of one hand clapping: it's circular. The correct way to consider death is as a third person; trouble is, that's very difficult (might say impossible) to do since we rely on experience for our perceptions. It is of course weird that while we experience human life every second of every day, we don't really have any idea of what parts of us make up the part that actually matters: our 'perception' (soul - although it's a word I've tried to avoid since I don't really believe in that). It is our ability to communicate which makes human life, which (inherently) is worthless, worth something (as compared with the lives of, say, animals). It's an uncomfortable thought, though, since we're obviously biased there by the drive for self preservation!      

As a sidethought, I'm no actor but I've often wondered whether actors who get totally 'into' the role, or who remain detached and scientific, are better. The former often leads to a better performance but this is just one of the side effects of that ain't it? There's lots of depressing creative work  out there, and we're drawn to it for a reason. I suspect there's something in the disposition of actors that makes them more affected by this sort of thing than most, and you can take a little comfort there, I guess, from the fact that probably makes you a good actor: you can't fake realism.
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