On Buffy...

"The Body" is my least favorite episode of my favorite television show called Buffy the Vampire Slayer. As a matter of fact, "least favorite" would not be an accurate description of my feelings for the episode.

If you have never experienced a death, the death of someone with whom you were close, with whom you spent your whole life up to that point, watch this episode and you will have an inkling of my own experience.

The episode begins with Buffy coming home, calling her mother's name simply to ask her a question. Just another day. She walks into the living room and finds her mother laid out on the couch, eyes wide open, staring up. I remember watching this episode for the first time and cried throughout. Every other time that it has come on while watching reruns of the show, I have turned the channel or deleted it from my queue.

Joss Whedon is a genius. Mainly he has my respect because of this episode. Why? Buffy deals with the discovery of her mother's body by having a series of fuguelike daydreams. She remembers the last time she and her friends were all gathered around the dinner table... Then she comes back to reality. Then the paramedics attempt to resuscitate her mother. She begins to imagine that it was all some kind of mistake;  her mother wakes up, is taken to the hospital and is deemed well. She snaps back to reality. The paramedics are attempting to resuscitate, but her mother is not alive. The paramedics are talking to her; she is listening and is looking at the speaker but she doesn't see the speaker. The camera shows the bottom half of the paramedic's face. She doesn't see him. But he also doesn't see her... He's a paramedic, dealing with this sort of thing on a regular basis.

I distinctly remember having this experience many times. I thought that if I slept in her bed, my sister would come home from third shift and yell at me to leave her room. I had a whole scenario worked out in my head. It didn't happen. She never came home. I thought that she might call. She didn't. She and I worked at the same place and I was sure I'd bump into her at work. We didn't.

The paramedics leave her alone with her mother's body to wait for the coroner. She pukes in the hallway then steps outside. It's sunny outside and children are playing. But the sun looks odd as it shines on her, like it's surreal. This particular scene reminds me of when I experienced my sister's passing and I realized that the world would continue despite the fact that I had lost her forever. The sun didn't have a gleam. Children's laughter hurt my ears. Food was a stupid invention. Work existed to give me something to do. I even stepped out on our patio, as in this episode, and the sun was shining but it seemed dark to me. Birds were chirping, but it was noise. The cat I had at that time (not my sweet Smokey) did not bring me any comfort. He whined all the time, mostly because he had been at home for a few days alone and hungry; not his fault for becoming fairly neurotic. Not mine, either.

I hate this episode of Buffy. But here I am, watching it and crying my face off and writing this blog entry.

I miss my sister (and I am fully prepared to receive all the cliches that people say when they don't know what to say). I do not wish she was here. I know she hated living on this Earth where people are often rude, two-faced and could give a crap about someone outside of themselves. I'm glad she doesn't have to deal with what is going on right now. I'm reminded of her often in the little things. I can now talk about her for a full minute now without getting choked up or watery-eyed.

I hate "The Body" but it is the therapy that I should have continued after her death. Now when people die, I just pray for them to be able to cope with it, for them not to withdraw from the world as I did, to talk to someone and to carefully choose with whom they share (I actually had someone tell me I would get over it). I also pray that this death experience brings the survivors closer to Jesus, because He is literally the only reason I am still standing after all this.

Joss Whedon, thanks for the therapy.