Not so strange that on the 10th anniversary of 9/11 I would awake thinking of death.
Two big themes in my book r Denial & Death. Yes, It is typically seen as an upbeat, take charge, positive tome, but flowing throughout r these two themes. Why? 'They' say that one cannot possibly appreciate and embrace joy unless we’ve known sorrow; that happiness means nothing unless we know the meaning of sorrow, grief, and trials. Guess ‘they’ believe it is the nature of our lives to need balance and abundance in experience and both sides of the proverbial coin with which we purchase life.
Living, then, is it the opposite of dying? Why, U might ask, am I obsessing on this state of being: decomposition? I speak of Decomp while standing on grass rather than on the flip side as pushing it up, or producing worm food aka fertilizer. For, as I state in my book, my friends and I are all dying, inch by inch. Born terminal, most of us are closer to our toe tag than our crib.
Some of us recognize r closer to a ‘celebration of life’. Some of us know it, realize it and some of us r in the blissful state of denial.
"A great deal of intelligence can b invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." ~ Saul Bellow
When denial disappears, is that ‘end stage’ one of despair? Desperation? Or do we even have time for such? Witness, as I did one fine Sunday morning on the I-205 bridge that spans the Columbia River marking the border between Oregon and Washington states, a momentary knowing. If the moment was long enf, a bit of denial or hope may have crept in. But life above ground was ending and life hereafter was imminent: Cars ahead of us (Jason and I) were slowing, some beginning to pull over to peer over the spot where the guard rail was broken and missing. It seems that moments ago a car had changed lanes without signaling, another swerved to miss, causing another car to sideswipe a small car which careened off the highest point of the bridge. Sinking instantly as there weren’t visible ripples in the river, nor yet gawkers standing up top, nor sounds of ambulance and rescue vehicles.
Unbeknowst to us, an Asian family, grandparents, children and grandchildren where blithely on their way to a family reunion picnic, completely unaware that they were to become fish food b4 the ants had even arrived at the picnic grounds. Death, but not time for much denial.
The opposite is true in my present life. I have 4 friends currently in the throes of denying death; their death. We’ve all read about ‘the stages’ of dying. I read Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s book “On Death and Dying” right after it was published in 1969 when my Dad suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack, this being years b4 my bro was facing his some 20 yrs ago. Denial is definitely one of the steps. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model]
How does one truly get from denial to acceptance? Can U really get thru Resignation? That type of courage and bravery comes with a price. How can one b a supportive friend in such times? Surely not by embracing denial.
I recently watched a terrific, nee heartbreaking, movie called "Wit".* With Emma Thompson and Christopher Lloyd, from the play of the same name about a woman facing fast death in the form of Advanced Ovarian cancer. One line she uses after getting her diagnosis of Stage Four is, “There is no Stage Five.”
Me thinks that gets us into a philosophical discussion, which is something I'm not qualified to discuss, so I’ll drop that thread and return to death and denial.
My best friend facing this challenge (is that a euphemism or what?) has a wife so unsupportive and full of denial that she gets totally blasted every night, rails against his gall in leaving her a widow [How Dare He?], blacks out and convieniently forgets the next day as she whines that ‘no one understands my plight’.
Another friend has a stand-by-his-side wife who intuitively knows his current stage and is there for him ALL THE WAY.
My far-away [East Coast] friend has been resigned to his fate for a very long, ardurous illness and just now is ‘giving in’ aka, resigned to his confinement and restrictions. Despite my best efforts to ‘crack’ his positive outlook and support the stumbling man who surly must b underneath…the little boy inside of all that cries silently to mama…he steadfastly holds onto his temperament of acceptance and his lifelong inability to spend time within the bleating state of bellyaching. Probably one of the reasons I was attracted to him and easily became his friend in the first place.
The other friend is fighting her demise tooth and nail. She’s had these ‘wake up calls’ throughout the years—fighting and twice beating breast cancer. Now she faces the most deadly cancer that we now recognize, with grace and goodness. It is doubtful she will prevail this time. But who knows?
I’m a life long fan of reading obits. They wouldn’t b in an obit unless survival was no longer an option. I’ve never read, “Battled the cancer and survived…”
What I detest is, ‘he courageously lost his battle with…’ like it was some kind of disgrace or failure. Think about it. The inherent idea that somehow to die is to lose. R U a better person if U win by not dying, by surviving your battle, as it were? Maybe one becomes a better person, but not because one lived, but because one faced death. And how one faces death.
U don’t have to die to realize that life is tenuous and must b appreciated and celebrated.
Case in point: My brother has paid his gardener, Mike, a bazillion bucks over many years to maintain the most wonderful lawn of pristine green-green grass. Whether in homage to his Iowa roots or his attempt to control a piece of his world, he deems it a good use for his well-earned $$ & all who visit stand in awe and wonder at this work of living art.
I’ve often, over the decades, equated my dear bro with a Dandy-lion—as i witness him as he marks his own course, grows when mowed over, and pops up where no man goeth b4.
A popular pastime—dandelion eradication. This ideal lawn rolls into a perfect plane, with exact lines, where the grass is kept short and nothing is ever done on the lawn, like dining, croquet, or cops n robbers. No gum wrappers allowed and Mikie sees to it with a totally committed vengeance. Exhibit only, no touching…
The magic of it is that we can look at this perfect vista and, as we stand there we feel so much in harmony with no possibility of harm, for the moment, all that is unseen remains so.
But one cannot live one’s life standing on perfect grass surrounded by the aura of perfection, in total denial. Denial has its place, it’s function, its usefulness.
It keeps alive the illusion.
9/11 reminds us that atrophy is our state of being. Altho 'Illusion Reins', or tried to. The solid earth on which we rage wars against other living beings of our own species is, without our help, dying, decaying, crumbling beneath our feet. Worlds always disintegrate…as do the stars.
Hug someone today.
=========================
* “Deservedly hailed as one of the best films of 2001, Wit makes it clear why top-ranking talents seek refuge in the quality programming of HBO. Unhindered by box-office pressures, director Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson turn the most unglamorous topic--the physical and psychological ravages of cancer--into an exquisite contemplation of life, learning, and tenacious, richly expressed humanity. In adapting Margaret Edson's compassionate, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Nichols and Thompson open up the one-room setting with a superb supporting cast. But their focus remains on the hospital experience of Vivian (Thompson), a fiercely demanding professor of English literature whose academic specialty--the metaphysical poetry of John Donne--is the armor she wears against the cruel indignities of her cancer treatment. While losing all that she held dear, she reassesses her life as an aloof intellectual, and Wit illuminates her bracingly eloquent and deeply moving struggle for dignity, meaning, and peace at life's ultimate crossroads” --Jeff Shannon
• For more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit_(play)
Two big themes in my book r Denial & Death. Yes, It is typically seen as an upbeat, take charge, positive tome, but flowing throughout r these two themes. Why? 'They' say that one cannot possibly appreciate and embrace joy unless we’ve known sorrow; that happiness means nothing unless we know the meaning of sorrow, grief, and trials. Guess ‘they’ believe it is the nature of our lives to need balance and abundance in experience and both sides of the proverbial coin with which we purchase life.
Living, then, is it the opposite of dying? Why, U might ask, am I obsessing on this state of being: decomposition? I speak of Decomp while standing on grass rather than on the flip side as pushing it up, or producing worm food aka fertilizer. For, as I state in my book, my friends and I are all dying, inch by inch. Born terminal, most of us are closer to our toe tag than our crib.
Some of us recognize r closer to a ‘celebration of life’. Some of us know it, realize it and some of us r in the blissful state of denial.
"A great deal of intelligence can b invested in ignorance when the need for illusion is deep." ~ Saul Bellow
When denial disappears, is that ‘end stage’ one of despair? Desperation? Or do we even have time for such? Witness, as I did one fine Sunday morning on the I-205 bridge that spans the Columbia River marking the border between Oregon and Washington states, a momentary knowing. If the moment was long enf, a bit of denial or hope may have crept in. But life above ground was ending and life hereafter was imminent: Cars ahead of us (Jason and I) were slowing, some beginning to pull over to peer over the spot where the guard rail was broken and missing. It seems that moments ago a car had changed lanes without signaling, another swerved to miss, causing another car to sideswipe a small car which careened off the highest point of the bridge. Sinking instantly as there weren’t visible ripples in the river, nor yet gawkers standing up top, nor sounds of ambulance and rescue vehicles.
Unbeknowst to us, an Asian family, grandparents, children and grandchildren where blithely on their way to a family reunion picnic, completely unaware that they were to become fish food b4 the ants had even arrived at the picnic grounds. Death, but not time for much denial.
The opposite is true in my present life. I have 4 friends currently in the throes of denying death; their death. We’ve all read about ‘the stages’ of dying. I read Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s book “On Death and Dying” right after it was published in 1969 when my Dad suddenly dropped dead of a heart attack, this being years b4 my bro was facing his some 20 yrs ago. Denial is definitely one of the steps. [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%C3%BCbler-Ross_model]
How does one truly get from denial to acceptance? Can U really get thru Resignation? That type of courage and bravery comes with a price. How can one b a supportive friend in such times? Surely not by embracing denial.
I recently watched a terrific, nee heartbreaking, movie called "Wit".* With Emma Thompson and Christopher Lloyd, from the play of the same name about a woman facing fast death in the form of Advanced Ovarian cancer. One line she uses after getting her diagnosis of Stage Four is, “There is no Stage Five.”
Me thinks that gets us into a philosophical discussion, which is something I'm not qualified to discuss, so I’ll drop that thread and return to death and denial.
My best friend facing this challenge (is that a euphemism or what?) has a wife so unsupportive and full of denial that she gets totally blasted every night, rails against his gall in leaving her a widow [How Dare He?], blacks out and convieniently forgets the next day as she whines that ‘no one understands my plight’.
Another friend has a stand-by-his-side wife who intuitively knows his current stage and is there for him ALL THE WAY.
My far-away [East Coast] friend has been resigned to his fate for a very long, ardurous illness and just now is ‘giving in’ aka, resigned to his confinement and restrictions. Despite my best efforts to ‘crack’ his positive outlook and support the stumbling man who surly must b underneath…the little boy inside of all that cries silently to mama…he steadfastly holds onto his temperament of acceptance and his lifelong inability to spend time within the bleating state of bellyaching. Probably one of the reasons I was attracted to him and easily became his friend in the first place.
The other friend is fighting her demise tooth and nail. She’s had these ‘wake up calls’ throughout the years—fighting and twice beating breast cancer. Now she faces the most deadly cancer that we now recognize, with grace and goodness. It is doubtful she will prevail this time. But who knows?
I’m a life long fan of reading obits. They wouldn’t b in an obit unless survival was no longer an option. I’ve never read, “Battled the cancer and survived…”
What I detest is, ‘he courageously lost his battle with…’ like it was some kind of disgrace or failure. Think about it. The inherent idea that somehow to die is to lose. R U a better person if U win by not dying, by surviving your battle, as it were? Maybe one becomes a better person, but not because one lived, but because one faced death. And how one faces death.
U don’t have to die to realize that life is tenuous and must b appreciated and celebrated.
Case in point: My brother has paid his gardener, Mike, a bazillion bucks over many years to maintain the most wonderful lawn of pristine green-green grass. Whether in homage to his Iowa roots or his attempt to control a piece of his world, he deems it a good use for his well-earned $$ & all who visit stand in awe and wonder at this work of living art.
I’ve often, over the decades, equated my dear bro with a Dandy-lion—as i witness him as he marks his own course, grows when mowed over, and pops up where no man goeth b4.
A popular pastime—dandelion eradication. This ideal lawn rolls into a perfect plane, with exact lines, where the grass is kept short and nothing is ever done on the lawn, like dining, croquet, or cops n robbers. No gum wrappers allowed and Mikie sees to it with a totally committed vengeance. Exhibit only, no touching…
The magic of it is that we can look at this perfect vista and, as we stand there we feel so much in harmony with no possibility of harm, for the moment, all that is unseen remains so.
But one cannot live one’s life standing on perfect grass surrounded by the aura of perfection, in total denial. Denial has its place, it’s function, its usefulness.
It keeps alive the illusion.
9/11 reminds us that atrophy is our state of being. Altho 'Illusion Reins', or tried to. The solid earth on which we rage wars against other living beings of our own species is, without our help, dying, decaying, crumbling beneath our feet. Worlds always disintegrate…as do the stars.
Hug someone today.
=========================
* “Deservedly hailed as one of the best films of 2001, Wit makes it clear why top-ranking talents seek refuge in the quality programming of HBO. Unhindered by box-office pressures, director Mike Nichols and Emma Thompson turn the most unglamorous topic--the physical and psychological ravages of cancer--into an exquisite contemplation of life, learning, and tenacious, richly expressed humanity. In adapting Margaret Edson's compassionate, Pulitzer Prize-winning play, Nichols and Thompson open up the one-room setting with a superb supporting cast. But their focus remains on the hospital experience of Vivian (Thompson), a fiercely demanding professor of English literature whose academic specialty--the metaphysical poetry of John Donne--is the armor she wears against the cruel indignities of her cancer treatment. While losing all that she held dear, she reassesses her life as an aloof intellectual, and Wit illuminates her bracingly eloquent and deeply moving struggle for dignity, meaning, and peace at life's ultimate crossroads” --Jeff Shannon
• For more: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wit_(play)
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