"Old age: I fall asleep during the funerals of my friends"

Mason Cooley’s observation, “Old age: I fall asleep during the funerals of my friends,” captures the subtle, aching paradoxes that often accompany later life. The line evokes layers of weariness not only of the body but of the spirit. Falling asleep during a friend’s funeral can be seen as a sign of physical exhaustion, the inevitable slowing down that comes with age. The body, less resilient, yields to fatigue, even in moments demanding solemn attentiveness.

Yet, beyond the physical, Cooley hints at a deeper psychological numbness. The repetition of loss may blunt the sharp edges of grief. After attending one funeral after another, the rituals of mourning can become as familiar as any other routine. Perhaps falling asleep is not just an involuntary act, but an unconscious retreat, a means of protecting oneself from pain too overwhelming to face directly, again and again. The mind, battered by cumulative sorrow, seeks refuge in oblivion, in rest.

There is also a dark comedic undertone. The scenario is almost absurd: one is so accustomed to death, so beset by funerals, that even such final remembrances become mundane enough for sleep to intrude. This irony exposes the strange comforts and discomforts of old age. While death looms nearer, it also becomes strangely less shocking, its presence a regular intruder rather than a terrifying surprise. Familiarity breeds detachment.

In the image Cooley offers, there is gentleness, too, a suggestion that sometimes life, even at its most somber, yields moments when the living can’t help but turn away, if only for a while. A slip into sleep at a funeral is a testament not just to fatigue or insensitivity, but to the overwhelming nature of sustained loss, and the complex, often involuntary ways the human psyche copes with the relentless passage of time and friends into memory.