Originally posted at http://www.livejournal.com/users/greysontiger/273980.html?thread=555324&style=mine#t555324

*sigh*….how do I say it best?

Well, I can’t say that I had even heard of this particular tiger’s name prior to his demise.

However, I did read his journal just now, paticularly his avowed last entries. From the writing which he conducted, it seems that Greyson was a guy who suffered as the result of something that he couldn’t control, something which ravaged his inner biological sanctum to the final hours of his stay on this dimension of life.

To the end of his postings, he maintained a sort of stiff upper lip concerning his condition. He went to the surgery, hoping, and probably expecting, that things would turn out for the better, and it would be back to life as usual.

Unfortunately, such was worn down by the varying degrees of health which he possessed throughout his ordeal. Such was obviously taking a tortuously-gradual toll on the person in question.

Thus, I find it reasonable that, at the moment that his body caved into the pressure of the pain, his soul, that essence of divine breath which holds memories, adaptations, and knowledge of most-unbelievably massive proportions, finally made an exit from the most immediate habitation which it had possessed for over 26 human years.

This event, which we know by that most dreaded, most feared, most saddening term in the English language, “Death”, is always with us. It is ubiquitous, prevalent, encircling in its tendencies. It comes oh-so-shockingly (like lightning), oh-so-painfully (like an arrow), oh-so-tremendously (like a hurricane), and oh-so-coldly (like water).

Yet, when I think about it, I wonder several things about death. I try to look outside of the ever-prevalent outlook of the mourner in order to look at death from a more-embracive perspective, one which takes into account both the statistics and the rationale.

Here’s one example: if death is such a tremendously-impactive event, then why is it that it is always so ubiquitous? Why does it always surround us in the obits? The eulogies? The personal memories?

Furthermore, how is it that the ancient traditions of cultures throughout the world adhere to the belief (or, dare I say, possible fact) that the soul survives the demise of its bodily residence and, to variant degrees of occurence, will always either 1) assume the body of another form, be it human or non-human; 2) remain outside of any habitation, thus becoming a homeless soul, or “ghost”; or else 3) ascend into another dimension with the status of “ancestor”?

Thus, if those traditions are correct in their assumptions, then it may be possible that this Greyson, whom so many knew, conversed with, or loved to various extents, and now mourn as a collective, has simply packed up and moved on to yet another phase of existence. Possibly he’s up in a Heaven which no living human being could possibly fathom (or, if those people at the Westwood Baptist Church in Topeka have their way….well, I won’t go there); maybe he has moved to another dimension in which he has finally assumed the form, the tiger fursona, which he often externally exhibited for a great deal of his short life in this dimension; maybe, at the exact moment of departure, he charted his destination directly into the womb of a conceiving mother in some other possible part of this planet; maybe he now lives in the Wired, as depicted in Serial Experiments Lain; or maybe he’s haunting your computer right now….who knows?

But we can dispel the notion that he’s entirely at peace. Wherever he’s gone to, its not going to be all THAT boring and idyllic.

That, my friends, is always for certain.

Belated condolences go out to the family (both nuclear and extended) and personal friends’ circle, respectively, of Greyson. I hope that they may find comfort in the more-than-inherent possibilty that Greyson’s life isn’t over.

Not by a long shot.