Historical May 1986 report or notice. Original dates, prices and contacts describe the source period; current availability has not been established.
There are some who would say that I am preoccupied with death. I think about it, I wonder about it, I anticipate it.
But I don’t think that I’m preoccupied with it.
On the other hand, how could you not be preoccupied with the one truly inescapable thing which will remove all of us from everything we know today? Death is, after all, the end. I won’t use this space to discuss arguments about afterlife or death as the beginning. Let’s just say that for this discussion, you are or you aren’t; alive, that is. I’ve often wondered what I’ll miss most when I’m gone. Actually, each time I think this I remember that I won’t miss anything because I won’t be around to miss.
If life were taken now, though, what would I anticipate missing?
Well, first I’d miss people.
My wife.
My friends. People I work with.
My pets – people of sorts to me anyway. You know what else I’d miss? I’d miss the news. I suspect that may sound a bit silly or even morbid, given that the news is usually filled with disasters of one sort or another, but I would miss hearing what’s happening. Part of me really, I mean really, really, just wants to know what is going to happen. How is all of this going to turn out?
At one level, sure, I want to know if the Football Cardinals will be playing here in the year 2000 and whether or not the new coach at Mizzou will develop a winning team and if Whitey Herzog will be able to maintain his fine track record. Those things, irrelevant as they are in relation to the total cosmos, are important to me now and there’s no reason to think that they’d be less important in the future. I once said that if I could simply get the Sporting News delivered to my coffin or have “Sports Open Line” played daily into my crypt, it would make leaving a lot easier.
The people that I know and love and care about, those same folks that I mentioned in the preceding paragraph, would get older and sickly and die. Three hundred years from now, though, when all the folks that I now know are simply memories, there will always be an England and a Sporting News.
At another, much more important level, I want to know how we’re going to turn out. That is-“we” as in human race. I mean, will we blow ourselves up? (Or, given recent events, when exactly will we blow ourselves up?) I think I’d trade life for the knowledge of what really will happen whenever and, for that matter, how we really all got here. I read how we now know that our galaxy is located in a certain part of the universe and how everything is all moving apart at thousands of miles per hour, and I think . . . what’s around us?
If we are — the universe — moving apart, then in what are we moving?
The issues are so complex and, yet, vague, that it’s hard to pose the question. That knowledge might, indeed, be worth life itself. (Note: I did read The Year The Yankees Lost The Pennant, and if “YOU” are out there, this is not a definite offer!) In death I’ll miss a lot of the little things too.
As I get older, and the life clock is ticking as each stiff joint reminds me, sunrises and sunsets and calming rains are more important. Nature is nice, but I think I’m even more appreciative of people and common courtesies.
An article that makes me think, a person who stops to help another, a fine performance or an A+ for effort, these are the things that really make life worthwhile.
These transcend money (although it does help, make no mistake!) and are centered around being aware of the little things that make the difference.
The big things are there, but it’s the little things that really count.
The people who don’t appreciate life, the rude and nasty people, I’m convinced, just aren’t aware of all of the little things that-make it all worthwhile. “How to die?” is a question worth considering.
We really don’t have much choice in the “how,” but it’s interesting nonetheless.
Most of us, I agree, would want something quick and painless. Going while asleep is always a favorite choice. Going while asleep often allows a smile to naturally be on one’s face, making the embalmer’s job easier, anyhow. How about altruism, though? Throwing one’s body on a hand grenade or in front of a bullet intended for a president can’t be easy, but it does have its virtues.
All of us, after all, want to be remembered, and what better way to go than to go down with all guns firing and the flag waving in the breeze? Horseback statues of generals, did you know, are often done with a kind of artists’ code which will tell you how the general died.
If the horse has two legs off the ground and is rearing on hind legs, the general died an honorable death in battle.
If one leg is off the ground, he died a normal death while awake. If, however, the horse is standing with all four legs on the ground, that means the general died in his sleep. I’ve read quite a few accounts by people who clinically showed signs of death for a few seconds, or even minutes, before they were revived. Almost always they describe a feeling of calm, a sense of green around them, and some distant and fuzzy light toward which they seem to be moving. I don’t know, but I’ll bet that all these accounts are of people who come from our society. I’d be curious what a native in some South American jungle would see under similar conditions. I’m sure it would be different, but I don’t know how.
When you think about it, leaving one’s mark is awfully difficult.
If you go back even a hundred years, how many people are really notable enough to be remembered? How many of those will be remembered in an eon or two? Other than those fortunate enough to be in a position to shape or change society or the world, generally artists, statesmen, military folk, and scientists, most of the rest of us will need to be content with making our mark in a subtle manner. That’s o.k. I think of children and how we influence them in so many unknown ways. Take my wife, for example (no, not like Henny Youngman would say, “Take my wife”). I mean, consider my wife.
She is, above all else, a good human being.
Now because she’s good, she’ll have a positive influence on just about everyone she meets.
Her niece, for example, will be shaped and molded, to a degree anyway, by Karleen and what Karleen believes about the world. Beth will carry a thread of that to her children and, presumably, they’ll pass on a touch to their children.
And who, primarily, shaped Karleen?
Her parents, of course.
So while neither of them are, as they say, “of this world” any longer, they both have left a mark which, if they were here, would justly cause them to be proud. Children are our hope for the future.
In a sense, then, they are also our only escape from death. Through them, we have the opportunity to leave a little of ourselves that can always live. Somehow this makes all those precious moments, those incidental times of sitting on laps and reading, of chatting aimlessly while driving to the store, of touching and holding, more significant. I think that maybe being preoccupied with death causes one to be preoccupied with life. That’s kind of nice.
Originally published in The Times of Skinker-DeBaliviere, May 1986.
Read this article in the original newspaper issue.
Original source: SD_Times1986_05.pdf, printed page(s) 8; PDF page(s) 8.
