On Dying

I think about dying pretty much every day.

I realize that there are some who may think that’s unnecessarily morbid.

But it’s not to me.

I’m at the age now where change is accelerated. The closer you get to the end, the faster it gets. Past fifty, it’s like somebody pushed Fast Forward.

And now it’s autumn again. The changing of summer into fall always brings with it a bittersweet nostalgia. Happy memories of the past collide with a heightened awareness that all things change and die. Even us. But there is a brilliant beauty as the leaves blaze their brightest just before falling.

In the days I have left on this whirling planet, I want to blaze more brightly. I want to reflect more Light.

So I think about the end. I remind myself that my days are numbered. I ponder how to make the best use of the ones I have left here.

Actually, I’m starting to get ready for The Trip. Even if I live to be 90, that won’t be long enough for me to get rid of all the junk I’ve accumulated and organize all of my messes. Last night, I threw out about 50 magazines I’d saved for one reason or another. Ideas I wanted to copy, trips I wanted to take “one day,” recipes I wanted to try. “I won’t need them in Heaven,” I reminded myself as I flipped through them one last time before hurling them into the recycling pile. It felt good. I am beginning to prepare for departure.

Still, it is ineffably painful that nothing here lasts. Sitting alone in my sunroom on a Sunday afternoon, I feel a sense of profound loss. I am grieving the presence of the quiet for which I once pleaded. I am missing the sounds of living that used to make me long for solitude.

I have a fantasy: For just a week… maybe even just a day… how I’d love to have all three of my girls back in this big house that seems so empty without them. How I’d love to time-travel back for a visit, knowing what I know now. How precious it was.

How passing.

Every day, there are poignant reminders of this inherent transience. It seems as if once a week, I have a friend who loses a parent. My mother-in-law is battling a life-threatening cancer; my mother is facing potentially serious health problems. As of last week, she can no longer drive. Her friends are leaving, one by one. There are constant goodbyes.

When I get together with friends I haven’t seen in a while, it’s slightly shocking to realize how much we’ve all aged. When did we get to be old? It almost seems like a joke. Inside, we’re the same in so many ways. But every time I look in the mirror, the footprints of time are more evident.

Everybody changes. Every body changes.

It’s hard.

Fortunately, I find that this heightened perception of mortality gives me a greater sense of compassion for all of us… even people that are difficult to love. I think, “One day, you won’t be here anymore. Let’s just spit it out: One day, you’ll be dead.” One day, each of us must pass alone through the doorway out of this life. For many of us… most of us… the path to that doorway will be littered with pain and suffering.

If I believed that this is all there is, it would be tragic beyond words.

But I don’t.

I long for the day when all change and loss and decay are past. When separation can no longer slit your heart open like a sharp knife. When there are no more goodbyes to be said.

I don’t want to artificially hasten that day. Although there have been times in my life when I thought it might be nice not to have to wake up again, they are long past. Now, I try to savor each day as a short-lived gift. Even if it is a completely unproductive day, full of frustration and irritation. Still, I try to find some tiny point of joy and gratitude, embracing the beauty of small, insignificant things. And I look ahead.

With numbered days, my internal priorities shift. I am learning to let go of things that will not matter in the end. Learning.

I ask myself, What is of eternal value? What can I carry with me when I go? What do I need to do before I leave?

These are the things I ponder in the fall of the fall of my life.

Winter surely comes.

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“What I mean, brother and sisters, is that the time is short. From now on… those who mourn, (should live) as if they did not; those who are happy, as if they were not; those who buy something, as if it were not theirs to keep; those who use the things of the world, as if not engrossed in them. For this world in its present form is passing away.” (I Corinthians 7:29-30)