My wife, Jo, for her own sanity, treats my eccentricities lightly. I see the glass half empty. She sees it half full. On birthdays, she’ll give me a stuffed Eeyore. Eeyore is the sad donkey in the Winnie the Pooh stories that constantly frets for the loss of his tail. I’ve accumulated several Eeyores; one has a removable tail, and another when you scratch its back, exclaims, “Oh, bother.” I also have a pocket size Eeyore that, when traveling, I can take on the road.
I mention this as I’ve been thinking about a disturbing topic lately: death. I suspect many of us don’t give it much thought. I’ve spent energy not thinking about it. After all, it’s something that always happens to someone else anyway.
Recently on PBS, I watched a discussion on death and dying. Called the Conversation Project, the presentation considered how poorly prepared most people are to die, and showcased a program in which loved ones can sit down safely together to discuss what happens when one member is facing death. The Project equips people for just such conversations.
In the Affordable Care Act, a provision had been originally proposed, to compensate qualified physicians to provide just such end of life counseling for their patients. It was stricken from the bill in political partisanship and caricatured as “ death panels.” Missing the point, the caricature framed the issue as morbidly as possible effectively mobilizing opinion against the provision. Such short sidedness is always sad, especially as so many people might have benefited.
The ancient Egyptians threw as awesome a bash as any of the Bacchanalian festivals of Rome. The Egyptian festivities included a skeleton placed in the hall as a kind of ballroom centerpiece. It served to remind guests of their mortality even as they went back for drinks or chased concubines, creating a more mixed kind of ambience for parties than the decorated bars and Champaign fountains that we’re used to. Of course, such party decor takes some getting used to, but if I were to arrange the affair, I’d have included a baby placed prominently next to the skeleton. It would balance things out. Appearing together they make a more inclusive statement and also provide what so many of us feel the need of when death strikes, namely, someone to blame. If I’d never been a baby in the first place, I’d never have died.
Yet, with all the Egyptian’s preoccupations with death they had trouble letting go. The ability to let go is not only fundamental to successful living, but also central to the art of dying well. In an Egyptian tomb, food, wine, dinnerware, goblets, servants, jewels and gold and even concubines were buried with the deceased. I don’t think the Egyptians really got it: they wanted it both ways. Even stone cold, wrapped up and mummified, hermetically sealed in pyramids they still wouldn’t give up a thing. I think Christianity is more realistic: it also believes in life after death, but expects that when we die we take nothing we can’t carry.
Life is a line (an erratic one) between birth and death containing all the contingencies of our human condition including dying. Contrary to popular notions, this places death not as an aberration, but as a legitimate part of living. Discussing death is an investigation of life.
My wife and I have begun the process of discussing death. We didn’t begin with any program, but as so often happens with significant issues in marriages, it came up during an incident.
I’m a computer illiterate, a klutz on a keyboard. My wife, Jo, is a consummate techie, self-taught, courted by friends and neighbors to solve computer problems.
One day I lost a document on my computer. I flew into a rage, (I always do) and with a stream of expletives damned technology as the devil’s spawn. I asked Jo for help.
Cool under fire, she marched me through the steps to retrieve my document. I thanked her and apologized for being a jerk. She shook her head philosophically and said, “I sure hope you die first.” I was appalled and hurt. I thought she loved me. I guessed I deserved it as I behaved so badly. She added, “If I went first and you had no one to solve your computer problems, you’d be a danger to yourself and everyone else within shouting distance. Best that you go first.” A little insensitive, I thought, but I allowed as to how she had a point. The playfulness was fun, but I also got it: just what would it mean for me if she went first or if I did, its meaning for her.
Talking candidly about our own death or that of our loved ones helps mitigate one of the subject’s most dreaded emotions: intense loneliness and isolation. I’ve engaged in conversations with members of my own family and as a clergyman, shared in these significant moments with others. Taking the first step to talk is hard. Soon, though, I’ve found a soft intimacy takes over the conversation and I’m aware that I’m sharing with others significant pieces of my once in a lifetime journey.
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