Today I’m forced to think about something I, probably like most people, generally choose to ignore: death.
Now, I don’t necessarily ignore death because I’m scared of it. I don’t give it enough thought to even allow myself to become afraid or apprehensive of it. I think it’s just my subconscious understanding that death is supposed to be a bad thing that I’ve just automatically used my innately over-developed compartmentalizing skill to bury all thoughts on the matter deep within my brain where I will rarely have to stumble upon them.
This is a practice that has served me well in my life up to this point. I’ve been fortunate enough that I have yet to experience the death of anyone close to me. I had a dog which died when I was 11, which was sad, of course, but didn’t really cause me to think about life and death, just because of my age. I had three great grandparents who died when I was quite young, probably all before I had turned 8. Again, they didn’t really hit me as “real” deaths because I was so young and had rarely seen any of them while they were alive, so I’m sure I met the news of their passing with a resounding “Oh.” In high school one of my younger brother’s old friends overdosed at a rave and died, but I’d only know him in passing and hadn’t seen him since elementary. Several years after high school I learned that my grade 12 math teacher had died of cancer. The closest I’ve come to being affected by death was also in high school, when a friend’s ex-girlfriend tried to commit suicide by hanging herself. She did end up surviving, but with severe brain damage that left her with the mental capacity of a two year old. They had been broken up for 2-3 years at this point, during which time I hadn’t seen her much, but this was the first (and until recently, only) time I actually really gave any serious thought to death. That passed after a short time and I went back to comfortably ignoring the topic. Until a few weeks ago.
That’s when I learned that my current dog has a cancerous tumour in his bladder. The good news is that he’s not in any pain, but because of its location, the tumour is inoperable, meaning that he has around six months to live. Clearly this isn’t as important as a human death, and I promptly ignored this information, filing it away where I wouldn’t have to think about it. However, this one won’t stay buried. When it crawls its way into my thoughts I do my best to chase it away again, distracting myself with whatever is at hand, but I think this is something I’m going to have to work through, sooner or later.
Of my limited exposure to death, this is the first time it’s come with an expiration date. The other were all sudden, to me, at least. This one is like Damocles’ sword, hovering there, just waiting fall. I want to make the most of my remaining time with my dog, but it’s impossible to keep everything as it was once you know that the end is coming. It’s like the time travel conundrum: the mere fact that you know what will happen in the future changes that future.
When he does pass, I think it’s likely to hit me fairly hard since, even though he’s just a pet, it’ll be the first “real” death I’ll experience. And that’s where most of my thoughts actually head when I give up on trying to corral them. Not how I’ll react to the death of my dog, but what would I do if a person I cared about died. It’s something that I understand on an intellectual level, but not yet a practical one. And, to be honest, I’m not that eager to find out.
It’s not even a question of heaven or hell or just disappearing into nothingness. Where you go when you die is important for the person doing the dying, not those left behind, though you could argue that believing they went to a better place would make it easier on the survivors, I’m not sure it would really make that much of a difference. Let’s be honest, grief is an essentially selfish emotion. You’re not really feeling bad for the person who died, your feeling bad because they died - you feel bad for yourself. Your dwelling on what you’ll miss about them, what your life will be missing, how you will be negatively impacted. It sounds callous, but I think if we were really honest with ourselves, most people would agree. Believing the deceased is in a better place does nothing to make your life better, so I don’t foresee it doing much to alleviate the grief.
While I am extremely afraid of the death of others, as I said, I’m not afraid of my own death. I routinely tease that I’m want to be dead by the time I’m thirty, and though it’s obviously not something I intend to actually pursue, there are some people who are genuinely upset by that statement. These people clearly have a different view of life and death than I do. While I have absolutely no intent on actively working towards my own death, I’m only really interesting in a life that I can enjoy. So while dying doesn’t scare me, getting old and decrepit does. Immensely. It’s a fairly juvenile mindset, but I want to be able to do what I want without having to worry about consequences: go where I want, eat what I want, do whatever, all without having to think about the repercussions caused by my dying body not being able to handle it anymore.
I also want it to eventually end. I have no interest in living forever (though as a bit of a tech junkie, I wouldn’t mind getting to see the technology that will be developed in the next few hundred years). In order for anything to be truly appreciated or worthwhile, it must have an end. Living forever, whether you were the only one able to do so or if everyone suddenly could, would be pointless and actually depressing. If someone offered me eternal life, I don’t think it would take much thought on my part before I turned it down. Continuous youth for a normal lifespan? I’d take it in a heartbeat, but eternal life, not so much.
I’ll leave the talk of death there, for the time being. I’ll likely revisit it in about six month’s time, possibly with a drastically different take on the matter. Until then.
Sleep well,
DTE
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Songs of the moment:
Metric - Gimme Sympathy; Puscifer - The Mission; Harvey Danger - Flagpole Sitter
Music while I wrote:
The Killers – Day & Age; Sufjan Stevens – Seven Swans
