July 6, 2011: After I entered my sixth decade and especially after my mother died last July, thoughts of my own death have been pounding on my brain. My heart skips a beat and my anxiety level rises when I envision myself dying. Like the elephant in the room of life, death, our mortality, is ever present. But when I say these end of life thoughts are clambering to get through to me, I don't mean I am not listening. It's just that months ago I went through a period of difficulty falling asleep...meaning I didn't want to close my eyes for fear I wouldn't see the light again. So though I continue to have death on my shoulder, I have tried to tell myself to make the most of my current living and to not worry about the finale until I am well into my eighties.
But whenever I tell myself to embrace the joy, to find my present happiness and to forget about dying, this rarely works. Whatever we are not suppose to think about, we inevitably will. So I've decided to look my death in the eye and say here I am.
What will I miss when I die? I'll miss seeing my daughter continue to grow and change and mature, even if by then she is well past her forties or into her fifties. We don't ever stop growing and the term “being a grown up” is a misnomer. She only lives a hundred miles away yet this could easily be ten thousand miles. Every time we see each other I relish the precious minutes of observing her facial expressions, catching her wisdom and sarcasm, watching her gain people skills and insights. Every time I leave her it feels as though a part of me has been torn asunder. Has anyone ever been able to adequately describe the bond between a mother and daughter? To me it is both overwhelmingly joyous and harshly devastating.
I have no idea whether I or Dan, my loving life mate, will die first. I sat next to a ninety-three year old gentleman at a concert recently and when he talked about his wife's death twelve years ago, he described a heart-wrenching time for him that was saved by becoming part of Elder Hostel and filling his days with his loves, one of which is classical music. Oddly enough we were at a Joan of Arc Concert with Marin Alsop with the dominant theme of Joan's burning death at the stake. I cannot escape death even when I try my damnedest. If and when Dan leaves me, I will feel split down the middle. Though we are two very individual humans, we have grown closer together as we have aged. I know I depend upon him in ways I never thought I would. I am not traditionally religious but the words to describe Dan come to me from the Bible: “He is my rod and my staff and he comforts me.”
Beyond missing friends and everyday, touching conversations with strangers (like my recent ninety-three year old acquaintance), I will simply miss looking at the sky: the blue, the clouds, the darkness, the stars, the moon caught between tall trees, the brilliant colors of a sunset, the birds soaring in V's across the open expanse. I come across as such a gosh darn romantic and I am. I will miss the sounds of wind...I can hear the leaves rustling in my front garden as I write. I will miss color: the multiple shades of green. I never knew until I moved to Oregon how many different shades of green there are. I will miss gardens and flowers and most of all I will miss trees. I named my daughter after a tree and perhaps this has given me a new appreciation of their majesty and strength. Trees seem like people to me. I feel comforted, loved and protected by trees. I will miss hiking in the mountains and at the coast...reaching the sandy shores with the tide rolling in or out...the white, foamy waves curving their spines and splashing their powerful arms towards us insignificant humans walking beside the waters. Earth, Air, Fire, Water, all the elements of this life, reside in my heart.
I will miss my home. For home is my center base, the soul seat of my physical living. We have created a home of abundant color and comfort. We have created an extremely personal space with mementos and memories of the lives we have lived. Dan has built decks and fences and I have stained them. We have painted, sanded and cleaned together. We have collected books and antiques, collected art from daughter and friends, collected rocks and shells, brought the outside to the inside. My father's legacy has been the fruitful meaning of home and family and I have embraced this inheritance and hopefully passed it on.
Often as I am sitting on my front or back deck drinking my first cup of early morning coffee, I think I will definitely miss this coffee drinking beginning to my day. I slowly sip my coffee, eyes darting from the beauty of sky and trees and flowers to cars passing by or people strolling the neighborhood or children screaming. It is really the simplest of things, sometimes the most mundane I will miss like enjoying a good home cooked meal with Dan, sharing a glass of wine, devouring a Sweet Life desert together, talking in the living room with Dan in his leather chair and me plopped on the soft, rose couch. I will miss hugging and kissing and laughing and crying.
Will I miss sadness? Will I miss heart-break? Will I miss the challenges I have overcome? Will I miss growing pains both symbolically and physically? Do I miss and will I miss my own youthful adventures of travel and loves lost, my dramatic introspective nature both then and now? Tolstoy once wrote that if we were given the chance to live our lives over again we would live them exactly the same as we have. Would this be true if I were given a rewind? I think I would learn from my mistakes. I think I would try to undertake more, have higher dreams, doubt myself less. But my heart tells me I have lived my life exactly the way I was meant to live it. So when I die I know I will miss all of it, whatever my “it” may have been and turn out to be.
July 8, 2011: The day I write about death, I go out in the back garden to water and naturally bring our dog Lacey with me. As I am watering the side yard, this blue Scrub Jay is vehemently chattering away. I search for where the noise is coming from and see this bird hopping around in the neighbor's apple tree. “What's going on?” I reply. “What are you trying to tell me?” As Lacey comes to the side where I am watering, the bird seems to become more anxious and the chattering turns to screaming. I figure birds and dogs are not a good mix.
The next thing I know, this baby bird is fluttering to the ground and Lacey, with her arthritic older age, suddenly has her youth back and is pouncing on the baby before I can move a muscle. It's my turn now to scream. The legs of the baby are dangling from my dog's mouth and is alive. I am telling Lacey to let go and she's becoming her primitive dog self and is not listening. She's literally walking away from me and chopping down on bird bones. I finally find something I can swat her with and she does let go. But I can see as the bird hits the ground, it's already dead.
I am totally devastated and apologize to the mother Scrub Jay wherever she may be. I've been thinking about death nearly constantly and there she is landing right in front of me. Most of our found dead animals have been carried by Dan to the garbage can. It's my turn. I get a plastic bag and stand before this baby which I see is really an adolescent bird. I give her or him a moment of silence and then I scoop him or her into the bag. Is it that the lessons we are to learn are always brought before us?
(c)2011
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