Thoughts on death and mortality

[codeerror]

I was just watching the late night news. It was about the ongoing conflicts in Somalia, and they were talking about how many people that have died there since January. They showed all these people lying in hospital beds, not one of them dead. Then I came to realize; I've never seen a dead person in the news in my entire life! This got me thinking quite i bit.

“If death frightens us, how can we go one step forward without anguish?”

We demand that our death should go by without any further notice. We isolate ourselfs from the inevitable end of our lifes. Is this some kind of side-effect from the fact that we live longer? We live longer because of the impressive medical development, most people now die in hospitals under treatment. Has this fact made us exaggerate the natural human instinct - denial of death?

I didn't see a dead person before I was 15 year old. It was the body of my grandfather, and we were in a church. I remember how he looked wax-like and unapproachable, and all his thoughts and knowledge was gone.
I thought, this is what we are: A piece of meat, with knowledge taken from other pieces of meat until we rot.

It's a very depressing thought, and a scary one.
In his book "Nothing To Be Frightened Of ", Julian Barnes put it something like this:

"We can hardly grasp the possibilty, if not certainty, that life is a form of cosmic mishap, that the main goal of the human race is to survive, that we do all this in the emptiness that surrounds us, and that one day earth will freeze and the human race will be gone. Noone will miss us, because there's noone and nothing out there to miss us. That's what it's like to grow up. And that is scary for a race that for so long has turned to self-made gods for comfort"

At the same time, there's something refreshing in this truth. When we run through our lives, pretending that life is forever, we waste it, and use it randomly, just like all the other resources we take for granted. But when we're forced to see how limited a life really is, it seems a shame to waste even a second.
Bringing death into the light, would be better than our silent, self-deceiving disregard of death.
I would even say that a culture that doesn't see their dead - that thinks it's sick and scary to do so, forgets how to live.

In the end, there's no cure for death, or birth, other than to embrace the time between them.

 

[Homoerectus]

Have you ever seen a man die? Have you ever seen the senseless death of young men at war? Death is not pretty and it is not something I want my family to witness until the time when they must face it. Enjoy every day you have> Enjoy every day you can spend with your friends and loved ones. Don't worry about those you can't help and help those you can.

 

[codeerror]

Yes, I've seen two people die, one was a friend of mine that died a few minutes after a traffic accident, not pretty at all. The other one was my grandmother that died peacefully in a hospital bed. That's not my point at all, the way people die are often ugly and senseless.
But why can't we talk about it? After all, death is as natural as taking your first steps. One day, we're going to stop living.
Death is much harder to contemplate if you don't have the anesthesia that religion gives, but it only gets more scary if we suppress our fear and create weird dysfunctions in the way we live. We only started to suppress the thought of death after WW1, before that death was far more natural to most people.

What are we trying to protect ourselfs from? Death itself?

 

[Ekim23]

Death is aweful... I m scared just thinking about it

But at the same time, will life would be as exciting if there wasnt death around the corner... dont think so

 

[thewiz]

My first memory of seeing someone dead was my grandfather when I was about 12 years old. I used to love going to the farm and he would take me out on the tractor and let me gather eggs in the barns. I remember looking at him in the casket and my mom crying. Then she stopped and said there was "something wrong."

When my grandma came over along with the funeral director, she said that they had shaved grandpa too well. He always left a patch of whiskers by his ear on his neck...it still strikes me to this day how she noticed.

My first view of death was four years later when I was awakened from sleep by my dad's voice yelling, "Oh my God..." I got up and went downstairs, My older brother and mom were trying to comfort my dad who was thrashing in bed and could not get up but was in excruciating pain. They said the doctor was on his way and would soon be there (mind you, this was the day when they still made house calls plus the doctor was a very good friend of the family). I remember the doctor coming in and listening to dad who would calm but then arch in pain once again.

Soon, he began to calm but it was because his life was ebbing from him and the aneurism that had burst on his aorta going to the right kidney. As he began to calm, doctor looked more and more worried and the ambulance had not yet arrived. Dad got calmer and calmer to the point the doc got up on the bed and began CPR. He had my brother and I do it while he gave dad a shot directly into the heart. I remember dad slowly passing before my eyes and the doctor closing his eyes with his hand. The other thing I remember was that when the ambulance arrived, the doctor told them that he had died and so they had us leave the room while they put him on the cart. As they were wheeling out of the house, my dad's hand fell from under the sheet...it was something I will always remember....kind of like a wave goodbye....

Since I have sat with my sister as she passed from cancer; she didn't die while I sat there, but within an hour of me leaving, having told her to walk into the light. I also helped my brother-in-law on his cancer journey as well as my mom....

Society likes things that are pretty; they like things that are fun; they don't like to be reminded that everything has a beginning and an end. The message is that you can be happy; instant gratification; no worries; do it my way!

Shortly after my grandpa's death, we went to a cousin's service in Detroit. I never knew her; it was part of the family we didn't often see and the casket was closed. However, the night before there was a huge wake with lots of crying, stories about her, sharing of times from the family and friends that identified she was not just something but someone. The next day was the funeral which began with a Mass that was quite somber (and also in Polish so I knew little of what was said -- just the actions). Because it was the end of winter, there was no service at the cemetery so everyone went to the hall and the final part of the journey was begun -- with a huge party that included tables of food, a band, drinks, and total celebration. The concept was that we had mourned, we had shared, and now we would celebrate that she was in a better place; she had completed the journey we call life.

I think if one focuses on death too much and is exposed too often, they can become calloused to what it means along with life itself. I know when I was a police officer and fire fighter, we encountered death often. I developed a gallows sense of humor -- laughing even in the face of death and what it was about. It was actually a coping mechanism that many in those fields develop; those that don't usually don't last long.

In countries that experience death and dying on a continuous basis, it becomes matter of fact; look at the German death camps. Once one loses sight that life is precious and that every life has a purpose, it is easy to turn one's back on humanity and become something totally opposite.

Death is nothing to fear -- everyone will go through it. No one knows when their time is up, which is probably good because there would be those that would be looking at the clock, those that would be cramming every second they could out of it, and those that would function just as they have.

In the years before I moved to DC and came out, I often sang at funerals. Most times there were some family members along with friends -- both in the parish and from the town -- who would attend the service in honor of the person.

I still remember one particular woman. I had delivered the newspaper to her when I was 10 or 11. She lived alone; her house was stacked with papers and she worked for a library in a larger city about 30 miles from the town in which I grew up. She would come to Mass alone each Sunday and sit in the back. As she aged, she also got smellier and smellier to the point people would cringe if they saw her coming and often had to leave if she was nearby. I had to tell her she could not come into City Hall and use the bathroom because when she would leave it was horrible -- she had shit all over and between that and the odor, no one would enter (including the janitor that we had to buy a mask for).

I had pointed her out to an assistant pastor who tried to befriend her one Sunday with a "good morning" and "can I get you anything." She looked at him while clutching a cup of coffee and a donut and said he could "get the hell away from me." I smiled at the pastor and gave him a thumbs up; "great job" I said! lol!

When she died, there was no one in the church save one niece who came with another guy. A few of the office staff came over from the church but no one else was there. I thought it sad that someone could pass through life and make so little of a difference that when they left this life, there was no one there. I was reminded of the time I complained to a fellow worker that I had worked all weekend to paint a hallway and then my son and his friends came in from outside and put little hand and finger prints all the way down the hall. She told me, "some day you'll paint and there will be no fingerprints to enjoy....so enjoy them while they are there and don't complain!"

Some people go through life and leave no fingerprints....that is what is truly sad. It is also easy to wipe them away because there are no memories; there are no lingering reminders that they were ever on this earth. That is the danger when one gets too comfortable with death and does not focus upon life....

 

[Haberdashery]

I really like what king Solomon says in Ecclesiastes 7:4

That a foolish person always thinks about happiness but a wise person thinks about death.

 

[BrainDamage]

In conclusion...we're nothing but slaves, are we not? Slaves of death and our own self-created fear of it. And death is the slave driver that forces us to live.

So what happens when you're able to break free of these shackles of fear? This emotion is a human creation, fabricated by our minds as a response to our consciousness of the reality of death. Thus, as a fabrication, one should be able to easily 'un-fabricate it.' I don't mean pushing it aside as we go about our daily lives or burying it under conviction that there's something afterwards. I mean a complete control over this emotion, enabling you to stare without any emotion, directly into the barrel of a gun, held by a crazed gunman who's about to pull the trigger. When fear is purged, death no longer has any power over you and you are no longer forced to live life. Is there no greater power in this world?

 

[paramedic_861]

I talk about death almost every day. When you work in a funeral home and on an ambulance death is part of the conversation at almost any point. I have been with people when they are at there worst and have seen some horible deaths and some peaceful deaths. Death is nothing to be afraid of. It is something that all of us one day will have to face. Death should be peaceful.

 

[thewiz]

Death is just the threshold that we cross-over to eternal life, and if we had a good life, and had been faithful to God (for us who professes to remain a christian as Gay men), then there is nothing to fear.

While, from my Christian eye standpoint, I agree with the comment; I also think when faced with it, I, too, will fear death. No one likes change; I was scared shitless when I decided to finally admit I was gay and it was how I was made because I was giving up the "picture postcard" that some call life: two kids, wife, house on an acre and a half, two cars, good status in the community. But I grew tired and began to welcome death over what I found myself "living."

Making the admission I was gay set me free and I was allowed to start a new chapter in the book of life that is titled simply, "Tom."

When I changed jobs a year ago, I was again fearful and apprehensive even though I knew the opportunities and future would be better in the new position over the old. Yet I feared making the change because I had gotten comfortable with where I was.

I think life is very much like that. I love my life and I am very comfortable with it (although a bit jet-lagged lately). Ending this chapter on the book that I have seen written may bring sadness, may bring joy, may bring relief -- I just hope those are to me and not people I love around me!

I have seen people die and I have seen people dead. I was in the emergency services area and also was prepared for ordination and worked with a number of people and families as they tried to journey through this thing we call "life." It was interesting because those that were content with life and what they had done seemed to be able to let go easier at times than those that felt they had unaccomplished tasks and goals. Too, those that viewed it as just closing one door and opening another seemed to be able to accept as did their families.

So I think I might feel apprehensive; I hope I don't fear but one never knows until they are standing there. I just know I want to be allowed to go and not have some "supernatural" measures taken to try to keep my heart beating when everything else is gone.....

 

[Craiger]

To me, death is just a transition from what we call life to another plane of existence. There is a fear we have developed because of the unknown factor that exists with that transition. Life itself has that unknown fear as well, but each second we live we enter a new phase into that unknown and on and on. I feel as though death is like walking through a door and looking back and saying, "What was all the worry about?" Fear is a human emotion that hopefully will be conquered in that final transition called death.

Craiger

 

[bounder]

My views on death have changed in the past year and a half. My dad seemed like a relatively healthy man, but he had one massive heart attack and that was it. I even saw him the night before because my parents came to visit me while I was in college. It was a huge shock and nobody saw it coming. I never tried ask questions like 'why did this happen?' because I knew I'd never get an answer.

But one thing I noticed was as I went through my turmoil, I would look at other people and it was business as usual for them. My world stopped but no one else's did. And at that time, I became less sympathetic when hearing about an elder person who died of natural causes or ailments that just creep up when you're old. I don't want to sound like I have a stone heart. Most of the time, I think young people (vague term--people in there 60s and under) dying is straight up tragic.

Nine months later I was in the hospital room when my uncle died, and I didn't shed a tear. I didn't really feel sorry for him because when he noticed that there was something wrong with his body, he kept it to himself. By the time he did finally see a doctor, the cancer was so advanced there wasn't much to be done, and he just became a burden on the family. I felt for my cousins because I knew what they were through, but I was more or less empathetic towards my uncle because he did absolutely nothing to save himself. Between his death and funeral, my eyes welled up once, not on account of him but because I missed my dad.

To me death is inevitable. I want to be around for a long while, and I just hope that when my time comes, I will be happy with the life I lived.