“I don’t know why you don’t live it up all the time when dying’s just around the corner, but you don’t. You’d think you would, but you don’t. I don’t know why.”
Everybody dies.
A cliche, sure. But maybe a little less of a cliche than the old saw about death and taxes.
I remember how remarkably untouched my life was by death when I was younger. I lost a maiden great aunt at 8 or 9, a great-grandmother when I was 17 and a grandfather at 19. I was in my early 30s when the first death I considered unfair occurred. My little cousin Stephen had been born with dysautonomia, a disease of the automatic nervous system, and he died at age 16.
It was the first funeral I ever attended, and I remember shoveling dirt into the grave with tears running down my cheeks.
“It isn’t fair,” I said to my dad. “Kids shouldn’t die.”
I cannot imagine anything more wrong in this world than parents having to bury their children.
Until I was in my mid ’60s, that was just about the only really untimely death in my world. My three remaining grandparents all died at around age 90, and my dad died after a long illness at age 82.
Then things started getting weird.
Four years ago this summer, one of my lifelong friends died of a brain aneurysm. Then two years ago in November, I learned that my brother-in-law had Stage Four liver cancer. And later that same month, my closest friend’s wife died. I suppose it was shocking at the time, but she had been suffering from horrible health problems for at least 15 years.
Still, all three of them were younger than me.
There were more shocks in store earlier this year. Within a space of two weeks, my wife had surgery for a life-threatening illness and a good friend from my college fraternity died unexpectedly. The surgeon told us Nicole’s lifespan would have been limited to days and maybe hours without the surgery.
But God is good. Nicole survived the surgery and just completed a six-month recovery. It’s not like we can live it up, though. The Covid-19 pandemic has ket us at home for more than seven months, and we’re planning — and hoping — we can travel for Christmas. This Christmas is quite possibly the last time for us that both our children and their families will be in the same place for the holidays.
So even if dying isn’t just around the corner, we can live it up a little this Christmas. We have been blessed financially because we lived a middle-class lifestyle on an income that was more than enough for 15 years. We saved and saved, and we have retired well. We could probably buy a second house if we wanted, although we won’t.
The quote at the beginning of the story is from “Bang the Drum Slowly,” a story of a dying ballplayer.
And you might think people would live it up if they knew they were dying, but they don’t.
Most of us go on living the same way we always have.
Because you don’t become a different person just because you’re dying
You don’t. I don’t know why.