A Series on Life and Death

My daughter, a palliative care social worker, recently sent me an announcement for "a reflective nine month series on life and death at The Continuum Center for Health and Healing." Its purpose is to help participants "explore and befriend their fears of death."

When I was a child and told my mother I was afraid of dying, she asked me if I remembered what it was like before I was born. "No," I said. "Well," she said, "that's what it's like after you die." That was the right thing to say - right because it's true and right because it stilled my fears. Of course, for all I know, a pit in hell is being dug for me right now, but I believe that after death we will experience nothing, just as we experienced nothing before we were born. If I believed in hell, I would tremble in the face of death, but from what I've seen, the hell that exists is right here on earth.

I don't fear death, but I suppose I should fear dying, which can be a wretched affair. "If this is dying," Lytton Strachey said on his deathbed, "I don't think much of it." But it's useless to worry about dying. I've done the best I can, having written advance directives and appointed health care proxies who know my wishes. I'll let them worry.

My emotion is regret, not fear. I hate to say goodbye to the clink of fruit juice glasses as my wife and I toast each other at breakfast. I hate to bid farewell to walking in Prospect Park, to crossing the Brooklyn Bridge, to lunches with friends, to family dinners, to the memory of vanilla ice cream coated with caramel sauce, to reading the novels of Trollope one more time, to conversations with my children, to the crunch of autumn leaves under foot, and to a whispered "I love you," at the end of day. I sympathize with Madame du Barry's anguished last words. After being dragged, terrified, to the guillotine, she called out, "one minute more, Mr. Executioner, I beg you!" When Emily's ghost returns to the graveyard, in "Our Town," she asks the Stage Manager, does anyone ever realize life while they live..every, every minute? If you do realize even a small part of it, how can you bear to say goodbye?

Life would be intolerable if it were infinitely long, and it's the knowledge of death that makes life precious. Even so, the nine month series on life and death is unlikely to help me accept without regret the inevitable loss of everything I hold dear. Perhaps my daughter will think of something else.