Whale-watching | Monterey Bay
It’s a beautiful summer day. The sky is blue; the birds are chirping; all seems right with the world. So let’s talk about death, shall we?
Here is why I want to talk about this (or, more specifically, feel like I need to): because until very, very recently, death was not a topic I could even begin to unbox in my mind without sparking an emotion that was some singularly crushing combination of despair and utter panic. The feeling that I got when I allowed my mind to wander to the death of anyone from my dogs to my husband to my parents to myself was so intense it felt like a living thing that I had to keep under lock and key, because if it got out it would consume everything it touched. I felt it – still feel it – physically, like a fireball in my chest. If I let it take even the smallest breath, it instantly expands beyond the borders of my body.
I wonder if I’m alone in this feeling. I suspect I’m not.
When I think about death, I cannot move. I can barely breathe. And so I don’t think about it. I certainly don’t talk about it. It’s always been an utter mystery to me how people everywhere – millions and millions of people, myself included – just go about their days, eating and drinking and sleeping and acting like everything is totally fine when there is an unthinkably horrifying event that is absolutely going to happen at some not-especially-distant point in their future. It’s like driving down the highway with the full knowledge that somewhere on the road ahead of you is a twenty-car pileup, but singing along with a fun Sheryl Crow song on the radio anyway.
How do people do that?
Religion was not a part of my upbringing, and death was not discussed in my house beyond a shoulder-shrugging “it sucks, but what can you do?” perspective. I have always believed that death is the monster lurking in the shadows; our most terrifying childhood nightmare come to life. Death ends it all, and beyond it is only darkness, and the only way to make it through all the things that happen beforehand is to ignore the inevitable, because if you don’t look death in the face maybe it’ll let you pretend it’s not there for awhile longer. So I learned to never acknowledge it; not ever. Sometimes I’ll wake up in the middle of the night filled to the brim with the awareness that someone – everyone – I love will die, and I will lay there flat on my back with my heart pounding until I manage to wrestle the thoughts back into the cage where they belong.
This is not a way I am interested in living anymore. And the reason why is twofold: first, because I want to give my children the gift of bravery – even peace – in the face of the one thing that has always brought me to my knees. I want so badly for them to have the chance to live without the fear of life’s ending; I know from my own experience that fear can feel like a prison, and I want them to feel free. And second, because my son has done a remarkable thing: in asking me harder and harder questions, he’s started to show me what I actually believe.
I’ve spent the better part of three decades crouching in a corner with my hands over my ears, despite the fact this technique has never proven especially effective. And you know what they say about the definition of insanity, right? What I think I’d like to try doing instead: Holding the idea of death in my bare hands, giving it a good, hard look right in the eye, and then – hopefully – seeing it for what it is: simply a necessary part of this gift we’ve been given, the chance to pilot our bodies through this wonderful world for awhile.
So with no particular illumination, no special wisdom and no real tools at hand apart from an awareness that talking about the big, scary parts of life is both painful and always worth it, I think I’d like to try being braver. Even writing this post was terrifying, but it feels like it’s time to try something new: saying the word “death” right out loud, and then seeing what happens next. Because I always thought that people who were honest with themselves saw death for what it is – a crushing blow; a terminal sentence – while everyone else was just indulging themselves in various palliative fantasies…but lately something I never expected in a million years has started to happen: I’ve begun to think I might be wrong about this.
I’ve started to tell my children that they don’t need to be afraid – and in explaining to them why, I’ve started to discover that I mean what I say.
