By Edwin Cooney
I don’t much like to think about this
topic let alone write about it. However,
this topic is one of two things each and every one of us has in common! We are all born and we are all going to
die. As formidable as the second
observation is, the second observation is as natural as the first.
Before proceeding with this topic, let
me share with you what compels me to think and ultimately write what’s here.
On Wednesday, August 5th, 2015 one of
the most companionable men I’ve ever known died unexpectedly at the age of
eighty-five. Sure, he had lived a long
time, but it was still way too soon.
His health was pretty close to robust.
He was still an excellent bowler and he was a fine fellow “well
met!” He was funny, interested in the
thoughts, feelings and needs of others, and generously helpful and thoughtful
toward practically all who knew him. He
was also a reader of these weekly musings.
Suddenly, on Friday evening, July 17th, 2015, he became ill which was
diagnosed as severe pancreatitis. Within
days of being stricken and hospitalized, his condition was evaluated as out of
control. Being a man possessing the
capacity to face the “unfaceable,” Will decided to let nature take its course
and slipped away into that dimension the rationalists and the logical amongst
us label simply as death. Will’s passing
leaves a void in the lives of his widow and his surviving son and daughter as
well as in the lives of his many friends.
On Wednesday, August 12th, just one
week later, former President Jimmy Carter who will be 91 on October first
announced that he has cancer which is spreading throughout his body. While he has yet to make the details of his
diagnosis public, such a diagnosis is to most of us a pretty clear sign that
“Mr. Jimmy,” as his Plains, Georgia neighbors call him, is likely headed beyond
the reach of the love millions across America and around the globe feel toward
him.
The above incidents force me to face,
however reluctantly, my own mortality.
Somewhere I read that the late Winston Churchill titled the planning for
his own funeral “Operation Hope Not.”
However, Mr. Churchill (who more than once in his life put himself well
within the reach of death) demonstrated the brave man’s assertion: “He who is
afraid to die is not fit to live.” While
I certainly find that assertion way too harsh and judgmental, it is a rather
bracing observation that compels analysis.
Birth is beyond our control and death,
while it is not beyond our capacity to summon, is beyond our capacity to
comprehend. As such, whatever it
consists of or may command of us staggers our imagination. Millions of us, “Mr. Jimmy” in particular,
cope with both life and death through our religious faith. Others merely surrender to the inevitability
that life lasts only so long. They are often offended by those whose religious
faith directs them to indoctrinate those who are solely energized by the
rational or provable realities of existence.
Ah, but therein lies the key! If life is beyond our capacity to summon and
death is beyond our capacity to comprehend, both are one in the same. We can’t summon life before we’re born
because we don’t exist within the dimension of life. We are incapable of comprehending death and
thus fear it, because that state of dimension is beyond rationality or
comprehension.
Recently, I received the happy news of
the birth of a granddaughter. Little
Olivia’s birth, as happy as it is, was beyond either her control or
comprehension. Her contentment or
happiness in her life will depend on a lot of things that aren’t clear. If she has good health, loving parents and
grandparents (which she has) and lives in a safe and prosperous social,
political and spiritual environment, she will likely be quite content dwelling
in this new dimension of life she herself never had the capacity to choose for
herself.
A number of years ago, I was told about
a young lady who was born a quadriplegic.
In addition to paralysis, she suffers frequently from spasms and backache. “I’m trapped in my own body,” she observed as
she was assisted during a meeting from her wheelchair onto a cot where she
could rest to regain the energy to sit upright again for a few hours. Others who are perfectly healthy are born in
Sudan or were born and lived under Hitler, Stalin or Pol Pot. These circumstances were beyond their comprehension
since pre-life comprehension doesn’t exist.
Thus, here is our irony: because we’ve
never experienced death we’re sure that at best it is eternal sleep. (Even the
religious among us pray that they and their loved ones will “rest in
peace.”) As for life, it is physical,
rational and scientifically provable. It may be the only dimension that
contains illness, sorrow and physical, emotional or spiritual pain and
uncertainty! As such, life itself might
be the dimension to avoid as beyond comprehension as it is it awakens us from
our prenatal slumber.
The source of our sorrow over the
passing of the departed is the realization that we’ll never see or be with them
again in this life. The joy of a new
birth is a new opportunity to be close with and show love for a life blooming
before us. No one, least of all the one
who is affected by it the most, summons life.
No one, not even the most rational or brilliant among us, can be
absolutely sure of his capacity to comprehend death.
It is right that we want to live as
long as we can, but as inevitable as death is, it is as natural as being born.
It is even possible that birth is far
more dangerous than death! More than
once I’ve heard it observed that hell exists solely on earth rather than in any
spiritual realm!
I’m convinced that if we live as fully
as we possibly can and utilize love, life’s greatest gift, as effectively as we
can, our individual end is likely to be surprisingly gentle and perhaps, just
perhaps, even welcome!
RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,
EDWIN COONEY
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