AILD Blog Post

I think about death far too often.  Not even death itself, just dying.  I'm incredibly comfortable by all reasonable metrics, yet I have nowhere left to go.  I've been everywhere else.  Steam ships across the Atlantic and caravans through the dunes, airplane journeys to Barbados and trains through the Swiss alps.  It has all happened to me, but that's just it, isn't it? It has all happened to me.
A friend loaned me the Faulkner book last week as we left tea at the Waldorf.  It was a relatively quick read.  
Although death is often perceived as the definite end of existence, the actual event of dying does not necessarily hold the greatest significance in the passage of an individual.  Addie Bundren’s death is not a dramatic or intense moment; she dies insignificantly, the way I think I would if it would hurry up and happen to me.  Her death does not mark a significant change in the direction of the plot of the novel- her death simply fits into the natural progression of the narrative.  As Addie remains “laying there, watching Cash whittle on that damn [casket],” she may as well already be dead.  According to Peabody, Addie “has been dead these ten days,” nothing but a breathing corpse waiting for death to finally take her breath away.  
Addie, although surrounded by members of her family, is essentially alone in the moment of her death.  In the absence of Jewel, the only child she really loves, and in the presence of a husband that means nothing to her, "the two flames [in her eyes]… go out as though someone had leaned down and blown upon them."  
I have the husband part taken care of.  At least Addie had some children, one of whom she cared for.  I have some coats, a smattering of archival Cartier pieces, my hair, mentions in the New York Times' social section, a dog that looks more rodent than canine, and the type of pain that only people with nothing to really hurt about endure.  Addie Bundren is me; however, I am not Addie Bundren.