The Porch Vacation Conversation
Death is associated with murder or disease, pain and dread. What would it be like if we didn’t die? Would we appreciate the time we have and use our life well? Existentialists think death is what gives life meaning. Susun Weed says that sometimes death is the cure. My friend Alex Wind, who died in 2006, said, “Don’t think of me as dead; think of me as making room for someone else to be born, like someone made room for me.”
When I was a girl I used to lie in bed at night worry about the unknown, of growing up and being expected to find a stranger to marry and start a new family. Why would I need a new family, I would think, when I was happy with the family I already had? Lately, I find myself pondering this other unknown and asking a similar question. And I’ve noticed that I have more sympathy cards in my greeting card stockpile than I have birthday cards now.
Post Note: The poetics of Porch Vacations are HERE.
March 11th, 2008 2:08 pm
yes that’s us full into the passages of life- hard for me to let go of some and myself
March 11th, 2008 2:14 pm
Thank you so much for linking me back to Alex. I was not reading here then, so it was all new. What a moving post you wrote in 2/07, honoring her. She seems to have been a woman of rich texture and insight. I have a friend’s whose father has melanoma of the eye. I had never encountered it there before hearing of his.
Having serious medical issues this year I found myself considering my own death more seriously than ever before. I spent much of this year feeling very afraid, hoping that my condition would not progress into invasive carcinoma…sure I was not ready to die. I began to see life in a different way, hoping for more springs and summers and for a happy ending with my diagnosis. Fortunately, so far I have one, but I reamin in follow-up treatment more aware of the fragility of life and with a strong drive to live.
March 11th, 2008 2:27 pm
why do we celebrate some endings (graduation, retirement, etc) but mourn others?
we find it “pleasant” to send/receive birth cards and not so pleasant to send receive death cards.
I’m still having trouble with endings, even though my sagitarian nature is to crave new adentures. perhaps i need to practice “dying” a little bit everyday till i get better at transitions and endings of the forms i get so attached to.
March 11th, 2008 2:28 pm
I didn’t know that, Sky. I’m happy that the treatments have helped so far. Sandy, the commenter above you knows from where you speak. I’ve been pondering death deeply since losing my brothers, Jim and Dan, prematurely and watching one of them die. I’m still trying to get comfortable with the idea of death. As more of the people I know pass over and take parts of me with them, I figure I might be ready when it’s my time. I think of Jim and Dan as pioneers of the unknown. If they can do it, surely I can. No choice in the matter, eh.
Here is another Alex story not to be missed about how she read my book “The Jim and Dan Stories” and then got her book club to read and discuss it, as she was facing her own death. http://looseleafnotes.com/notes/2006/04/strong_in_the_broken_places.html
And this one about her last Scrabble game. http://looseleafnotes.com/notes/2006/12/alex.html
March 11th, 2008 4:44 pm
I can’t help but understand and agree with the idea that death makes life more meaningful. Or… as the musical ZORBA states: “Life is what happens when you’re waiting to die.”
~S
March 11th, 2008 5:51 pm
I like the the way Alex Wind puts…….making room for others to be born. Love Sherry xo
March 12th, 2008 5:07 am
so glad we caught my uterine cells while they were still classified as “atypical” and before they progressed into cancer. so far, so good, i am happy to report. i will continue follow-up, meds, and biopsies to keep a close watch on it for a few years.
thanks for the links to the other posts about alex. what a strong and inspirational woman! my college roomie died a few years ago of melanoma. hers began with a mole on her abdomen and though they thought they had gotten it all during initial surgery, it returned 5-6 years later and killed her within a few months. melanoma is so aggressive.
March 12th, 2008 10:54 am
Death has always been a topic of conversation in my family. Much more often discussed with humor than with sorrow.
I for one would not want to be on this planet, in this body, forever. To me, forever sounds much more horrifying than the question of what happens when the lights go out.