the sting of death

Flipping channels, I came across a pajama-clad old man talking about his physical ailments.  It seemed to be the same old PBS health documentary – except that this man was going to be filmed as he died.

The program covered human development from birth to death, and it occurred to me that I’d never seen a person die.  Well, not true: I’d seen thousands of people die in all kinds of ways – car chases, bombs, drownings, light sabers.  I’d never seen someone die in real life, though, so I was curious.  What was it really like?  Watching a person die on TV seemed like voyeurism in the worst degree, but I found myself rationalizing.  I would die one day; before that I likely would see some loved ones die.  A bit of preparation would probably help, so I decided to practice on this fellow.

I don’t remember much about him.  He was quite old – late 80’s or early 90’s – and he smoked cigars like a fiend.  He was a bitter cross between George Burns and Andy Rooney, a real curmudgeon: witty, jaded, had seen it all and could no longer be affected.  Why had he agreed to be filmed dying?  He’d be too busy to notice the camera.  Was he afraid?  You live that long, nothing scares you.  What would happen after he died?  He’d just turn into that moldy grime you find beneath your toilet.  What about God?  He gave Santa Claus more credence than God.  Still, you could never be too sure, so he had a contingency plan: two Cuban cigars in his shirt pocket.  He’d offer one to God so they could have a smoke as they caught up on old times.

I didn’t like him.  He was abrasive, boastful, irreverent.  Death should be more respected than that, yet there he was, yucking it up.  But while I found him repulsive, I anticipated The Main Event still to come, and was grateful to be “practicing” on a person I had trouble bringing myself to care about.

Until he started dying.

The interviews took place over sporadic intervals – he’d outlasted his three-week life expectancy.  Suddenly, though, the documentary footage became dim and grainy, the camerawork sloppy.  It was the middle of the night, and there he was, chest heaving, shoulders jerking as he groped for each breath.  His son was there, but no other family.  His eyes were wide but unseeing – widened as if he could restore his sight by opening them more – and his whole physical frame heaved and shook with a strength impossible for his age.

That footage lasted more than five minutes.  By the time his deep broken death-rattle began, I was on my knees, hands over my mouth.

Weeping.

There is no circle of life.  No matter how successfully John Elton croons that Lion King song, there’s nothing circular about it.  Life just ends, abruptly, in a pain-wracking dead stop.  Psychologists reassure us that death is wholesome, that it’s a necessary part of life itself – but they are wrong.  Death is terrible in the old sense of that word.  It is entirely alien and unnatural, and has nothing to do with life.

Death stings, and I weep at it.