The Black Lady with the Furly Hair

Yesterday I read about the life of Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, considered by some to have been the last Renaissance man.

Like me, Goethe too considered all the implications of life, death and God by the tender age of 6. I had him beat by a year - my first existential crisis was suffered at the age of 5.

My mother and I were visiting my paternal Grandmother at the Presbyterian church where she worked as a secretary. On the way to her office I walked past the outer doors leading to the inside of the church itself. Glancing in I saw a very small, very old black woman laid out in a white casket.

With my mother's permission I approached the casket and looked at this poor woman. I remember sayign she had "furly" hair. I couldn't pronounce the word "curly" but I, unlike most dull and worthless 6 year olds did understand that this woman was no more.

Sometimes I wonder if this woman is still remembered by her family and friends. After all, 1985 is now 25 years ago.

Back then I had more pressing concerns for my own fate. If every child is supposed to feel safe I felt very unsafe. No one could keep me from death. Existential anxiety at the age of 5.

What happens to us after death? Lying in my bed I, for the first time, realized the concept of eternal nothingness and I experienced the flushed, nauseating panic that I would experience many times over, whenever I thought of any possible end to myself.

And what if I lived on forever? The implications were even more profound. What would eternal life be like and who can conceive of a life - at least a human life - carried out for eternity?

All of my thoughts were not even advanced enough for Existentialism 101, but still, pretty heavy stuff for a 5 year old.

That poor black lady with furly hair. Now she was in the great unknown. Was her name Florence? Or Lucille? Did she dress hair and play bingo?

What would my casket look like? I couldn't wait until morning so I could participate in some dull 5 year old activities. Would it be brown? Polished? How gruesome that I had to die. I didn't even like life as much as I loved myself, my own company, thinking my own thoughts and living in my own skin. Not an end to the world, but an end to myself is what made death so terrifying.

So I can flatter myself by comparing myself to Goethe (we shared an early, precocious interest in the opposite sex and a fear of thunderstorms), but I was also like William Blake. Through my childhood I felt on intimate terms with God and other spiritual beings, some of whom showed themselves to me or came into my room at night. All orders of beings were in my lif. So I believed in something. I still do. I think I will go on forever..

But just the thought of not existing is scary enough.