Upon Return

“I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death”

Edna St. Vincent Milay

I am back from Paris, and I will share a bit about that soon, but I returned to two deaths and I need to explore those experiences first.

Frances’s uncle died while I was on the plane home from France.  John’s death, at 55, has been anticipated for at least a year and the fact that he never actually died made it seem like he would live forever.  Less than a month ago he was on an Alaskan cruise with his wife.  10 days ago he took his son fishing. 

Every death envelops me in Molly’s death, and her death taught me that the only way to mourn is to live.  John died in California and it was not even a question that Frances and I would be part of the gathering: his life was remembered by a large family telling stories, hanging out in the pool, eating plenty of Mexican food and drinking plenty of wine.  Even as we mourned John, we instinctively celebrated life – his and our own. 

An hour after our return from California, there was a knock on the door that a neighbor had just died at home. 11 PM.  Dark.  She had been recently diagnosed with an aggressive cancer and I don’t think death took her by surprise.  It was a small and intimate gathering around Cathy’s body as her husband prayed for her and waited for the funeral home to come.  Someone put a flower in Cathy’s hand.  Her husband lit a candle.

I suppose God was in the room with us.  Cathy was not.  She was still warm, but gone and not lingering.  Naked but for a towel over her body. Peaceful but not sleeping.  Dead.

I tend to experience death as spiritual transition; Cathy taught me that before it can be a spiritual reality, death is a physical experience.  But that physical experience is relatively short: the body was removed; the pictures came out; the stories were told.  Life was, and continues to be, celebrated.

So my entire being is full of death and its challenge to live boldly and with passion.   Since death will ultimately take us all, there is not much point in giving it more than its brief moment of physical victory.  I shall die, but that is all that I shall do for death.