Death

So here’s the deal.
I don’t want to get old and I don’t want to die.

You see the problem, right?

My mom just died last year.
She was 93.
By the time she died she was bat-shit-crazy.

Okay, she had Alzheimer’s. But for those of us on the outside looking into the gaping maw of that terrifying unknown, it comes across as “bat-shit-crazy.” Because frankly, it’s easier to buy into “crazy” than what’s actually going on. A human being is being slowly eaten away. Their body goes on living but WHO they are is disappearing. Worse, it’s morphing into some hideous shadow of the WHO they used to be. And what if that happens to me? And what is it like to live with that every minute of every day of every week or every year of ……… ?

When she finally died, it was a blessing.
See MOTHER 1915-2009 to understand that.

My friend Charleye (that’s how he spelled “Charlie”), on the other hand, went in for kidney surgery. He came out just fine. I talked to him. The last thing he said to me was “I’ll be home tomorrow. Give me a call.” That was the last thing I ever heard from him.

That evening there was a follow-up emergency surgery as a result of something that went wrong with the first one and that was it for Charleye. I never saw him again.

The year before he died Charleye had written his autobiography. His beautiful, young wife gave it to me after he died. If I’d read it before he went to the hospital, I would have said my “goodbyes” then. Charleye started at the beginning of his life and told the whole, wonderful story. He laid it all out there. What happened. What he thought about it. And what he had learned from it. Charleye summed up his entire life. He said everything he had to say.

He may not have known it was a “good bye” but I bet he did. I sure did. It screamed, “This is it. I’m done. Goodbye.”

And that, my friends, is why I do not write books. I don’t want to EVER be finished. I don’t want to EVER say EVERYTHING I have to say. Think of all the people who have said what they had to say, either in literature or art or music…….and then died. Think of them! Not me, boy! I’m not going to write a great novel or paint a great picture or write that 9th Symphony. I’m playing it safe. Only short articles and not so much as a pop tune. I’m going to live forever!

Between Alzheimer’s and Charleye’s way, of course I would rather go Charleye’s way. But let’s be honest. Everyone wants that. But that is not the choice, is it? The choice is Charleye’s way now, today, this very moment……or Mother’s way in 30 years. Ah, you see? Now that is not an easy choice is it?

Before Charleye said he would “see me tomorrow,” he said this. “You know, when I went in for surgery I was not the least bit worried that I had made the wrong choice.”

Here’s what he meant by that.

Charleye and I both grew up in very conservative, Christian surroundings. We both attended religiously based educational institutions and we both went into the entertainment business. Eventually, we both come to our senses and dumped that fairy-tale-clap-trap-religious- mumbo-jumbo in exchange for a more realistic view of the world. So what Charleye was saying to me was that when it came down to the moment of Truth, he did not regret that decision.

That was the single greatest gift Charleye could ever give me and I will never forget him for it.

Because I am not just afraid to die. I am terrified. Frankly, if there was ANYTHING I could do about it, I would! Every article in this book is about death and the meaninglessness of life. Everything I write is just my sublimated way of tilting at the existential windmill. If you haven’t noticed that then you have missed the point.

My adopted father, certainly the only one I had ever known at the time, died when I was nine. And the most amazing thing happened.
NOTHING.

The world did not come to a standstill. There were no major holidays declared. There was no weeping in the street. People did not throw themselves out of windows in despair. On the contrary, life, as near as I could tell from my very narrow perspective, when right on as it had before. I heard people laughing. I saw shops open. Nothing on TV about it. It was business as usual.

And I realized right then and there I was in big-shit trouble.

We come. We go. Except for a few people at the top of the food chain, nothing changes. NOTHING. And heck, even for them, there’re still dead. So what difference does it make?

Not that leaving something great behind wouldn’t at least help.

I spend much of my life studying and talking about people who left some great stuff behind. Composers, artists, performers, people who left behind such Beauty, such Truth, they will never be forgotten. But that’s not “me.” I’m never going to do that. When I watch AMADEUS I am all about Salieri. That’s a guy I understand. That’s the guy living in my head. I can see the Beauty. I can hear the Truth. But I never will produce it. I am doomed to a life of the perceptive, intelligent, and therefore perpetually in pain, audience.

Lily Tomlin said, “Hell is having a vivid imagination and no talent.”
Hell yes, girl!

And since I know I will leave nothing of value behind it just makes it worse.
I was here.
I left.
Nothing changed.

I try to stay busy. I try not to be alone.
Actually, alone is okay, as long as someone is nearby.

I fear dying in a foreign city, alone. Dropping dead on the street. Being stared at by strangers. Strangers who don’t know me. Strangers who don’t care. Strangers for whom I am at best a curiosity and at worst an inconvenience. It’s why I do my best never to travel alone. I need someone there to be with me at the end.

I avoid roller coasters, and any boats that carry less than 1000 passengers. I prefer the stairs to elevators. As a pedestrian I always give traffic the right of way. I check the expiration date on food. I keep my cell phone with me at all times. I hate to fly. I have to assume I am going to die just to get on a plane. I put my affairs in order. I’m nice to the children.

Normally I’m fairly mean to the children. It’s not their fault. It’s just that I hate them. They have so much time left and they waste it. They waste it on video games and phone calls and cheerleading. Things that don’t matter. And they have so much time. So many years to waste and not care. Damn, I hate that.

This kind of banal, existential trauma has been amply dissected in a brilliant book entitled “The Denial of Death” by Ernest Becker. Let me sum it up for you. All of life is about death. Everything we think, everything we do is ALL motivated by the fear of death. Everything.

I recommended this book to Charleye several years before he died. When he’d finished it, he called me up and said, “It’s incredible. It explains everything.”

That’s why I loved Charleye. He understood.

There’s nothing to do about my not-quite-debilitating fear of death. It’s coming one way or the other. I’m not even sure it hasn’t already happened. That’s one place I try to go from time to time, for the small comfort it brings.

I try not to think about eternal punishment by a God I rejected years ago. I try not to think about oblivion, the unending No-thing. I’m not sure which is more terrifying, eternal punishment or eternal !

I try, and fail miserably, not to take it out on my family and the people around me. Think of these few pages as an apology.

Obviously one day it will all be over and I can relax.

I guess there is something to be said for that.