But what I've been pondering lately is the fact that, despite being able to live longer than ever, there are still plenty of ways death can prevent you from getting a free bus pass. We don't all get to grow old. It's always been the case and it always will be. But, as our suing culture gets more and more out of hand, so does our inability to accept that illness will strike randomly, accidents will happen, and people will make mistakes. And we are all blessed with free will – the free will to eat at McDonalds every day but not call Suing Is Us when we become so big that we have to be lifted from our beds by a crane.
I know that anger, rage and the need to lash out is all-consuming (and sometimes helpful) when you have lost a loved-one 'before their time'. And I'm not being insensitive or ignorant of this fact. The point I wish to make (badly) is that there is no 'before our time', there is only 'our time', when and how it comes. Perhaps if we replaced the 'why me?' with the 'why not me?' we could have a better 'relationship' with death. Perhaps by accepting the randomness of death, and the reality that we all stand the chance of being hit by a falling tree, or the intricacies of our inner workings failing to compute, we can be less consumed by anger and more appreciative that we're actually lucky to be here at all.
Naive? Probably. But I certainly mean no harm or insensitivity. Just trying, as ever, to ease the burden...
This is why I often incorporate in my funerals the words, 'So-and-so's life is now complete.' However old they were.
ReplyDeleteI think that modern Virtue Theory has a lot to do with this. There is a school of thought that holds that death afflicts those who deserve it. So when someone dies, people tend to say, 'Well, she never took any exercise,' or 'Well, look at what he used to eat,' or in the case of someone like me, 'Well, he smoked like a flipping chimney.'
But, as you say, Reaper G smites the just and the unjust alike. Prolongation of life by diet and exercise, and the extension of an appearance of youth by the application of botox, are not elixirs.
I son't think you have been at all cold-hearted. Death is the harshest thing we have to face, and we owe it to ourselves to get real.
How interesting, thank you Charles. As you say, the Virtue Theory is no guarantee whatsoever of long life. Reaper G's middle name is Random. After all, as the saying goes: "Being teetotal, not smoking and abstaining from wild parties doesn't make you live longer. It just feels like it..."
ReplyDeleteThanks for articulating the idea that there is no 'before their time' so well. I am currently writing the eulogy for a young man killed in a car accident and will use it if I may. Essential point to get across, especially to a crowd of twenty somethings filled with the sort of unnecessary guilt that a death like this so often instills.
ReplyDeleteThank you Rupert. And yes, please do include in your eulogy. I feel rather flattered that you feel it is worth repeating! That's the joy of blogging and sharing thoughts with like-minded people.
ReplyDeleteWise words, CB, and expressed not "badly" but admirably well. There's a lot in here to mull over, which probably means a post of my own rather than cluttering up your blog, but for now:we have quotes to help us get across the idea that you can't value a life by its length. Maybe we need more good quotes (or writings such as yours above)to help us get across rather more gently my philosopher-daughter's comment on a health misfortune which befell her a year or two back, and which she is now managing so very well (proud? Moi?) -
ReplyDelete"shit happens."
Including death, whenever. H'm. Could be my chosen epitaph. "Shit happens. Never mind, cheer up, think of all the times it didn't and it won't."
OK, it's not Thoreau or Plato - though I feel it might be Seneca...
Thanks for valuable thoughts. And selected by Rupert himself. Worthy of a Gloria-winner like you. (Sorry, can't do one every week!)Nothing cold-hearted about it.
Thank you Proud Pop! And yes, I suppose I was trying to find a delicate way of saying "shit happens". Perhaps, once again, this is more about 'educating' people before a death occurs, rather than hitting them with it at the funeral. Although I think a combination of the two would be ideal.
ReplyDeleteAs for epitaph's, I recently read that a headstone at a churchyard in Woolwich was inscribed with the commonly-used couplet:
As I am now, so you must be,
Therefore prepare to follow me,
To which some wit had added:
To follow you I'm not content,
Until I know which way you went.
Fascinating post and an idea that comes up again and again. Some people are "ready" at 50, whereas next week I have the ceremony of a man who "did not go gentle...." at the age of 90.
ReplyDeleteCharles once suggested to me that "ripeness is all" and in the case of the elderly this is probably true (How many times have we heard "it was a relief in the end").
Is our problem simply reconciling ourselves to the thought of "the life not lived"? Thinking of a recent ceremony for a woman under the age of thirty who will never see her children reach maturity.
In answer to my own question - no, of course it's not. Nothing is that simple.
Sorry that I'm a late-comer to your blog, but I am enjoying it.
You are most welcome XP – the comfort blanket is wide enough to extend around all shoulders and I'm very glad you're here...
ReplyDelete"Reconciling ourselves to the life not lived" would certainly appear to be one of the main challenges faced by those who lose someone 'young', and is a really interesting thought. And I do love the "ripeness" analogy, courtesy of Sir Charles.
However, as you so, so rightly point out XP, nothing is simple when it comes to dying, death, bereavement, funerals, etc. We can only try to make some sense of it, for our own benefit as well as the families we 'work' with. The term complex, just doesn't do it justice!