Death be not proud

(Originally posted 11/18/2009)
“Everything, everything ends.” ~Death Cab for Cutie, Meet Me at the Equinox

When I think of death, I think of strawberries and kittens.

I know. Not the way most people envision the most morbid of subjects. But the first human death I experienced was my grandfather’s when I was very young. So young, that my parents decided I would only be scared and confused by a funeral. My brother and I spent the afternoon at a farm picking strawberries and chasing kittens the day Grandpa was buried.

It didn’t take long for the rank funk of death to permeate my sunny memories. At some point, I became aware of mortality in the way that all kids eventually do, and was convinced each time my parents left the house they would die. I’ve always done better processing things if I know the “why” behind them, so my mom was smart to explain to me that the reason I was feeling this overwhelming anxiety was probably because I was suddenly aware that everything—everyone— ends at some point. And I was projecting my own fear of the unknown onto my parents, because dealing with death in those terms was somehow more tangible than thinking of it in broad, sweeping strokes. Sounds a little overly analytical for a kid, but it helped.

It wasn’t for a few more years that I discovered death, in fact, does paint this world with broad strokes. Coloring some areas of life so deeply that no part of them remains unsaturated by his touch; Dulling and muddying the brightness of others, just wisping shadows on the rest. But no part of the landscape is untouched.

When my grandmother died my junior year of high school, there were no strawberries or kittens. There was an unexpected plane ride to a muggy airport in Florida. There was the steady beeping of machines and the quiet murmurs of people with white coats and scrubs. There were tubes and drips and sighs and tears. Worst of all, there was waiting. Waiting for an unseen visitor no one would address by name to come and make his appearance at this strange gathering.

Then came the planning and the phone calls. A funeral service filled with warm words and chilly conversation. But it made sense. Death, in that case, had taken his proper turn in line. Once we grow old, we die. I understood that.

The next death never made sense.

Mike was 17. We were all 17. But Mike was never allowed to be any older. It was a car accident. There were no strawberries or kittens then, either. There were hallways filled with sobbing students, shocked not only by the sudden loss of a friend, but also by the forced realization that even the young and the good could be stolen by Death.

I remember almost everything about that funeral, but most clearly I recall the eyes of his parents. I wish I could forget that part. Nowhere was the injustice of a life left so quickly more visible than in those eyes. And in that moment, though I was years from having my own kids, I knew that of all Death’s cruelties, this was the worst; The loss of a child. Because it’s not the way it’s supposed to be. It isn’t right. It isn’t fair.

Death doesn’t care.

Time passed, the way it does even when it seems almost blasphemous that it does so.

I came to understand a little more of grief and learned a healthy respect for the way life can change in a blink and a phone call.

Words like “cancer” “heart problems” “diabetes” “stroke” and “hemorrhage” took their rightful place in my mental card catalogue of horrors, filling the spots vacated by boogey men and monsters.

By working with Hospice, I learned a little of the silent beauty of death. Unfair, unyielding, and cruel as it is, Death is a necessary guest at the party. For one thing, his unseen presence makes everything else seem that much more meaningful. Moments wouldn’t mean as much if they weren’t temporary. Colors wouldn’t seem as bright if not for the shade he casts so unpredictably. Saying “I love you,” wouldn’t seem so necessary. And none of our own children, or their children, would have their moment in this world if we each clung to it without release. Death clears the path for life, however unevenly or indiscriminately.

But even as I write that, I know I’m still trying find respite from the fear by explaining the “why,” just as my mom did all those years ago. I’m still looking for death to be strawberries and kittens.

Maybe, just maybe it is. Maybe it’s life that’s the hard part.