Death

(Yesterday I turned 57. How cool! I am happy that I am looking down at the grass instead of up at it. Six years ago next month, the doctors told my sons not to expect me to live. I got calls from people I did not ever want to talk to and was baffled, but morphine does weird things to your brain. They didn't tell me that I was not supposed to live, so I lived! And as I begin a new year of my life, I am glad I am here to share this with you!)
Why do I think so much about dying? Why do I feel like this is the beginning of the end?
Everyone knows that all living things die, including people. Yet somehow we don’t expect it to happen to people we love and we certainly don’t expect it to happen to us. Everyone who is born dies, in fact, we are in the process of dying from the minute we are born. When we feel healthy and vibrant, we simply can’t wrap our minds around our own death. Just like teenagers when they drive recklessly or engage in other risky behaviors, most of us think we are invincible.

In Western cultures, we have sanitized death. We preserve bodies so that visitations can go on for days and burials can be delayed. We remove death from the home and place it in hospitals, hospices and nursing homes. We put make up on the deceased to make them look alive. Visitors can often be heard to say, “Doesn’t he/she look wonderful?” while looking at a deceased loved one. We keep children from knowing about death. Is it any wonder that we generally act as if death will never come to us? In many non-Western cultures, death is a normal part of life. Death is not sanitized and death is not hidden. Ten of the forty traditional meditations in Buddhism have to do with contemplating corpses!

Chronic illness reminds us of our own mortality, not once, as in a heart attack or bad accident, but daily. Aches and pains, medication and limitations, doctor visits and lab tests are constant reminders that our bodies are not functioning as they should. We study each new symptom trying to figure out if this is the beginning of the end. The stress itself makes the symptoms worse and we begin a downward spiral. We become anxious and our muscles tense causing panic attacks and pain. Sleep eludes us and the fatigue makes everything worse. Fear and depression become constant companions.

Contemplating death is not a bad thing, fixating on it is. We will die when we die. All the worry in the world will not add one minute to our lives, but is certainly may shorten them! Rather than spending time crying, “Woe is me,” we can value every moment that we have. What would you want the epitaph on your grave stone to say about you? What would you want your obituary to say about you? What would you want those who are left behind to say about you? Are you living your life right now in such a way that this will be true? If not, what are you waiting for? Chronic illness can be a tolling bell or a wakeup call. It’s up to you.

Karen nearly died from an acute episode with her chronic illness. After coming to terms with her own mortality she purchased a cremation plan and wrote her funeral instructions and service. Karen wants her epitaph to read, “She left the world a little better than when she came in,” and “She squeezed every drop out of life.” She’s still with us and her disease is in remission!