When I was younger, like most I guess I didn't dwell on it much. My grandfather, my father's father, died when I was six and then for about a good five years or so a lot of my family members that were related to my grandmother, my mother's mother (85 and still kicking I might add) died in short succession. I knew some well others not so much. I then entered a phase that I guess I would call a long period where death in my life personally faded a bit. Of course there were still deaths in the family and among friends but it was accepted and part of life at that point, though again looking back, I wasn't as preoccupied with it, and I can't say I am now either but when I do think on the matter it's with a lot more I guess, depth, than I used to.
A big thing that colors my views these days is I guess that I have totally and completely abandoned the Catholic faith of my youth. I am much more influenced by Eastern philosophy and non-religious Western philosophic thought and the reality of science these days. So, being very sanguine about it I don't give much credit to the idea that I or anyone else exists consciously in any form after we die. I will say... This gives me no comfort. I don't care what any atheist tells you, this is part of the deal when you reject the idea of an afterlife and God. You are now left on your own with no sense or feeling of a divine presence and the promise of something after death and it is... Unsettling. I wish more atheists would admit to it. It does call into question lots of things that were just accepted and unquestioned before I left the church.
That's not to say I don't feel life is precious or has no value, but some ultimate, objective meaning? I just don't see it that way, and if I am frank... I think such thing are the illusions the self clings to. But we all cling to a wide variety of illusions in this world so thinking on death isn't gonna be immune.
As said... I didn't give a lot of deep thought on death for a long time. Then I got a double whammy in a short period. My mother got diagnosed with breast cancer. It was treated with chemo therapy and eventually she had a double mastectomy. This went on for a couple of years and it was just at the time I thought, the toughest thing I had ever experienced. There were moments of real despair, and yet... I had what I thought was a calculated sense of hope that it was possible she would make it through it all. Mom lived and we thought we were out of the woods. Then, literally a week after my mother had finished the last of her reconstruction surgery my father got diagnosed with cancer. Much worse than mom. Lung, liver and pancreas. I still hoped all through my father's treatment but unlike my mother this was blind hope. In the pit of my being I knew that it wasn't going to end the same and whether it was just 50/50 blind luck, I turned out right. People I had known and loved had died before but... This was different. Dad had buried his mother seven years earlier. I remember walking home from her funereal with my father. He said to me, "You know... This makes me think about how much time left I have now..." and he said it with this look on his face like he was grappling with the nature of the universe itself. Once it was clear dad wasn't going to make it I was just torn between an almost borderline madness and a melancholy yet Zen like acceptance of this as a reality. Which interestingly when I think on it was a bit like dad himself. I remember when at the hospital my dad refused last rites from an armed services chaplain (he had been in the 101st Airborne) and his atheism or at least his lack of faith in the church and it's belief was expressed in such a crystal clear way. My dad never talked much about that side of him but he had made it known to me a few times that in his view, the church and I suppose by extension, God, had never put food in his belly or clothes on his back. He owed them nothing and vice versa in his eyes.
So in a short time death became a daily factor in my everyday life for about four years in a way it had never really been before. And I can't say I learned any deep insights actually but in regards to my father's death it certainly focused my sense of control over my emotions as there were days I just wanted to do nothing more than and rip off all my clothes, go running into the woods and scream at the universe. That of course would be... less than optimal.
And even though dad was dead, life for the rest of us had to go on. We had a funereal to plan after all. My mother and father had been in love since they were teens in high school. My mother's mother had accepted my father wholeheartedly as a son in all ways but blood. These two women were in no position to be putting up with my indulgence of grief and sorrow. They needed me to be there and be strong as they dealt with their grief. And above all... I know without even a second thought that is what my father would expect of me. I didn't think in terms of him being out there looking at me through the veil of life and death. Now he existed only in my memory but on that level I still didn't want to disappoint the memory. We made the plans and we held his funereal over two days. One night at the funereal home and church services (mom, raised Catholic insisted as was her right) the next day. My mother asked me, the atheist, to give the eulogy.
What followed was oddly and counterintuitively, one of the most richly "spiritual" and enriching experiences of my life. We held the funeral at the same place I had seen my grandfather laid out when I was six. Family from all over Brooklyn and across the country came. My brother and I greeted everyone, which was just a blur, though everyone says that I did okay. Then as it got later in the evening my mother asked people to come up and speak their hearts about my father. This lasted very late. There were laughs, there were tears there was great grief and great love expressed. I went home and tried to come up with something to say at the church given what my mother had asked of me. I tried, oh how I tried to come up with something. Nothing came to me. Nothing. Nothing inspired me, nothing seemed right... I was worried I would spend all night trying to come up with a half assed speech and then only get a little rest and go to church looking and feeling worse than I already did when I couldn't really afford either. I did some yoga, some martial arts training and suddenly it hit me. The thought occurred to me that despite my love for this man in the grand scheme his simply goodness was never really ever going to be memorialized. "They will not build a monument to this man." I wrote that down. I thought on what that meant. I had my premise. The rest would flow without thinking. I didn't need to write a single thing down as long as I kept that thought, that idea. They would not build a monument to my father. A weight was lifted. I trashed any of the writing I had done at that point. I got into bed and knew that I could improvise that eulogy on the spot. And the next day at St. Michael's Catholic church on 4th Avenue in Sunset Park Brooklyn I did just that. My mother and my father's families came in enough numbers to fill out that church to about half it's capacity. My brother, myself and various cousins and family friends were the pallbearers. As a former member of the armed services my father had an American flag draped over his coffin and an honor guard folded it and gave it to my mother as they played Taps. It was afterwards as people came to greet me after my speech that truly both crushed my "soul" and yet lifted my heart at the same time.
"I owe everything to your father."
"If it wasn't for your father I wouldn't have a home right now."
"Your father helped me when no one else would."
"I have a job today because of your father."
"Your father was like a father to me."
And on and on, and on... Look I knew that my father was a good guy. But this blew my mind. There was all of this stuff that I had zero idea about. Funnily it made me think about how my mom would always be on my dad about falling asleep on the couch when I was a little kid when something needed to be done around the house that only he could do. Now I though "Well of course dad was always catching a nap and lazing around... He was always helping somebody else out." The kicker came when a long time friend of my mother's youngest sister came up to me and my mom as we were getting ready to leave for the wake after the mass. "Judy" he said to my mom in his undeniable Brooklyn accent, "That was the greatest funereal I've ever seen. I swear to God, I felt like it was something out of a movie." And... He was right. Everything about it played out like it was written for a fictional narrative. Or was that just me organizing it into a narrative that I would find something meaningful and positive in? In any case, the positives did not erase the negatives. The negatives did not erase the positives. I was made more aware of the paradoxes of living as a human being I will say. The sadness and joy of "now" was there alongside the, to myself, ironclad and inviolable facts of death's permanence.
t:
How badly will it hurt?
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