Thoughts about Death

At the end of January, it will be the yartzheit (year anniversary) of my Dad's death. It is hard to believe that this year of mourning is coming to an end. Time has flown by, and at the same time, stood still. At times, it has felt like an eternity almost as if time has been suspended. Maybe this sensation of the suspension of time is a glimpse into death, where there is no sense of time at all....

In her sweet and tender, yet heart wrenching memoir about friendship, Let's Take the Long Way Home, Gail Caldwell says that there exists that moment that none of us wants to remember, probably, central to survival: WHAT IF DYING WEREN'T A BAD THING? She says, death leaves us with a great and terrible gift: how to live in a world where loss, some of it unbearable, is as common as dust or moonlight. And then, finally, unwittingly, acceptance wraps itself around your heart.

Caldwell quotes the poet Pablo Neruda who says loss invites us to think in spatial, articulated terms, entreating mourners to inhabit death as though it were a dwelling:

Absence is a house so vast

that inside you will pass through its walls

and hang pictures on the air.

And then Caldwell poignantly says the real hell is that you're going to get through it. Like a starfish, the heart endures its amputation. And yet, we never get over great losses, she says; we absorb them and they carve us into often kinder creatures.

I feel that in our culture we don't deal with death until we are doing it, or more likely, watching someone else do it. That is such a self-defeating approach to something that we all will do. In our "age-defying" culture, I am saddened by this. In our culture, we deny, defy, and "fight the signs of aging".

As my 53rd birthday approaches on November 6, I feel I am now on a different side of death, (hopefully having many more years to do and accomplish) yet I acknowledge that I journey in that direction now, towards that inevitable place.....

My father approached his death with such dignity and integrity, the way he lived his life. His example propels me and nourishes my journey. My faith in his process gives me strength, when sadness and fear rear their (ugly) heads.

Caldwell's courage to share her experiences and musings over the loss of her best friend, Caroline Knapp, along with my Dad's valiant and courageous journey towards his own death, have given me the courage to launch this blog of my own experiences and musings.

I say to those of you, who have found your way into my musings, that I welcome your thoughts and your own musings. Thank you.