By Judith Ford
This is, I think, the first year I’ve begun to accept the notion that I will one day die. Not that it’s been a big secret. I watched each of my parents die. My mother, who was always the dramatic one, died peacefully, while my father, who’d never been much for self-expression, died struggling and full of fear and rage. Resisting all the way. Someone once said to me that we all die as we’ve lived. Not my parents.
I turned 63 a couple months ago. Not one of those BIG ages, like 21 or 40 or even the big 6-oh, but for me, a signal. A signal to pay attention. There isn’t as much time ahead as there is behind me. I might have said that last year or even ten years ago but for some reason, on this birthday, I got it: not a whole hell of a lot of time left.
When I say that to Chris, he gets all defensive and hyper-rational. Says things like, “yeah yeah, you’ll drop dead tomorrow.” “No,” I say. “I don’t think I’ll die tomorrow, just sooner than I want to.”
My father was 77, my mother was 74. I am healthier than they were. I don’t smoke. I exercise. Will that allow me to avoid the strokes that my mother, grandmother and great-grandmother all suffered?
I always imagined, when I was in my 20’s, that I would die, at 84, falling off my motorcycle on a mountain road. I haven’t owned a motorcycle since my first child was born. I’d had one crash and after that, couldn’t ride without awareness of my vulnerability. When I had my daughter, I didn’t think it was fair for me to take that kind of risk any more. I kind of miss my little Honda 90. Was it a 90? I think it was. Its predecessor was a Honda 50, a slow old thing that, when I was 22 and had never owned a car, opened up worlds for me.
Back to death. Yes. Back to death. I had a brush with it when I was 42, a major flare-up of an auto-immune disease I didn’t, before then, know I had. After that, life was different. Everything was different and nothing was different. I mean, I was vividly aware of my mortality and of how much I wanted to stay alive. For months after I was discharged, following many weeks in the hospital, I experienced the world through a bubble of heightened senses, everything glowing and glittery and inexpressibly precious. Then, it faded. Of course, it faded; things that wake you up to the utter wonderfulness of being alive always fade. Routines settle back in. I went back to my habit of writing to-do lists that would choke a cow. Back to my pattern of going to bed each night with my head abuzz with what I hadn’t yet accomplished and must get to tomorrow. Now and then, I would remember. Then 5 years later, when I had flare-up number 2 and once again did not die, I thought I would never ever stop feeling grateful for yet another reprieve.
But I did stop. I do stop. None of us is alive and awake all the time, I guess. Would I want to be? Maybe not. It’s a bit painful.
In the past few years, several of my friends have been diagnosed with cancer and are out of the immediate – but not the long-term – woods. One friend died of Lou Gehrig’s disease 10 years ago. My golden retriever died the same year as my father (1995). My favorite therapy teacher, Dick, died that year, too. How did all these vital parts of my life stop being here, taking up time and space? They were here. Now they are not. How can that be? Not even a jagged hole in the air left from where they used to be.
So when I say I’m beginning to accept the notion that I will one day, sooner rather than later, die, I am whistling in the wind. I have moments here and there where I kind of get it and then it’s gone. And I’m left with the delusion that I have all the time in the world, until I think about it. I do not have all the time. I don’t like it that I don’t have more time.
Three years ago, I pretended to have only one year left. I followed a guide by Stephen Levine, did meditations on the subject, wrote about it, kept notes, but eventually, it all felt like a sham. I knew, the whole time, that I wasn’t going to die at the end of that year. I was pretty sure.
And I realized that, if it were true, if in fact I knew for sure I had only a year, what I would do was… nothing out of the ordinary. I would do the dishes, walk the dogs, fold the laundry, sit at my kitchen table and watch the finches flock to my bird feeders. I would choose to be alone. I would choose only those I love best to be with me. I would go to the grocery store. Maybe I would clean up my files so none of my writing would be inaccessible to my daughter (who is named in my will as the trustee for my writing.) I would go on as usual as long as I could, wanting the familiar, wanting to savor, wanting to bequeath, but quietly.
I know that at 63 my remaining vibrant years are dwindling. So what do I do? I make a commitment to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon with my 23 year old son next spring. Why not? There will never be a better time.
I have no grip on this at all. I think it’s a horrible terrible thing to do to people, get them all juiced up on life and then slowly – or all at once – take everything away. Not fair. I wish I could opt out. Of death. Of the many losses of aging.
NOTE: WRITING TOPIC — DEATH & DYING is the latest Writing Topic on red Ravine. Frequent guest writer Judith Ford joined QuoinMonkey in doing a Writing Practice on the topic.
Jude,
I laughed out loud when I read your 20-something plan of dying at 84 on a motorcycle in the mountains. I can so hear you saying that. Even now.
I liked this writing practice…all the questioning about why death and how come the close-calls don’t keep us permanently awake. Every time I’m at a funeral I think I’ll never be lulled back to the vague place. I always am, too.
You are an example of vibrant and healthy living to me. Thank-you.
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Thanks, Teri.
I wonder if I would be this crazy-in-love with life if I hadn’t had those close calls- or if you would be the wide-awake person you are if you hadn’t been at those funerals, gone through the other rough spots in your life.
Impossible to know
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Jude, I love your commitment to hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon next Spring! What an inspiration. I can’t wait to hear about it. You’ve taught me a lot over the years about fear in dealing with illness and possible death. And the way that you always bounce back. I mentioned in one other comment — 60 scares me a little. I don’t really know why. And why is that the age that does that? Not 40 or 50? The first time I’ve really been bothered by reaching another decade will be the 60’s.
I think what bothers me the most is that I may not get to all the dreams I have left, the things I want to accomplish. Not unrealistic things I might have done in my youth. But ordinary dreams and visions for the second half of life. I keep plugging away anyway. Thank you for writing with me!
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What a gentle meandering through life and death. I can relate. Turn 50 this month, and we’re confronting very big changes in health. No more assuming life goes on as always. No, none of that. And our beloved caretakers–parents, aunts, uncles, godparents–dying, dead, failing, fading. I feel somber and sober as I live each day at my hectic pace. It’s good to slow down and give Death & Dying the reflection it commands.
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Beautiful writing, Jude. Great to hear the comments too.
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Jude, this piece of writing captures a part of you that I have gotten to know over the years. I particularly loved the honesty of the last few paragraphs about facing what may be the loss of independence and vitality before we die. Not that it’s a given but we can prepare for it by doing what we have the energy to do now.
I can hardly wait for the piece about your hike to the bottom of the Grand Canyon with you son.
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Thanks, all.
YB, your comment about being somber and sober struck a cord. This aging business, the many losses that are involved, is not easy to deal with. Takes some steadying, some focus, a shift in priorities. And earlier bedtimes.
I can’t push myself to my edge and bounce back within 12 hours like I could in my 30’s and 40’s. Damn! I miss that. I have to manage myself differently. Still learning.
QM, I have let go of so many of the old dreams – that sounds sad but really, it hasn’t been. I always thought I’d one day get around to being a singer, a dancer, an actor. I’ve nibbled at those things in the past 5 years and found they don’t taste the same. The time for them has passed. Letting go of the old goals opens up new ones. Mostly that’s been okay with me.
The Grand Canyon plan has hit a few obstacles, mainly that Phantom Ranch at the bottom is booked solid for the next 13 months, leaving only hot summer months in 2013 possibly open. So Nic and I are regrouping, planning day hikes in the area, rather than the full trek to the bottom. Both of us a little relieved that our touchy spines won’t have to deal with carrying 3 gallons of water each way, further compressing vulnerable disks. (yes at 22, Nic already has some challenged disks)
Best thing about this aging thing, contemplating dying, is that there are so many other people doing exactly the same thing. Grateful for your company.
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Jude,
Thanks for your reflections about this subject. While reading, I decided to eat one more piece of chocolate than I normally would, just in case I don’t make it back to finish it off tomorrow! Someone once said that how we think about death, what our beliefs are about it, will shape how we live. The tough thing is, nobody knows what it is….except for the absence we feel when left behind. For me, it is the losses that go with aging that seem to be the hardest, more so than facing the big D. I am 42 and seem to have been going through a mid life crisis for the past 5 years. Really, I am rebelling against time and loss and change and all the things I can’t do anything about. It’s good to know we are all in the same boat though and it helps to share and write about and find some humor in it all (after the crying, of course). Cosmic joke. funny and not funny.
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