Reflections on Death
I started writing an entry a week ago Monday, but I never finished it. It was about the passing of Peter Jennings and how, now that he has died, he will be linked in my mind with the deaths of my father and Al Fletcher. I didn't finish it because I got busy with other things, much of it revolving around watching the ABC specials on Peter's life and death.
Al Fletcher died Thursday morning, and I've kept myself otherwise engaged so that I wouldn't have to write about it. I really don't know what else to say. I went with Al to a special Native American sweat lodge that lasted four days (and four very hot sweats). That's how much Al wanted to live. That's how much I wanted Al to live. The medicine man felt sure Al had gotten powerful healing and would live for several more years. It didn't happen that way. Al lived about two more months.
Why have I waited so long? Why do I feel so little at the death of Al Fletcher when I cried at the news of Peter Jennings' death? (I think that to answer the second part, never under estimate the power of television to manipulate our emotions.)
I seem to keep all death at some sort of remove from myself. The first close death I remember was of my paternal stepgrandfather, Grandpa Jim. He was, by all the accounts I've had, the best of my grandmother's husbands, and he was a good grandfather to me. He taught me things, he took me places, he helped me get a job one summer. His death came suddenly in 1969 while I was at Keesler AFB, Mississippi waiting to get into Radio Operations Tech. School. School had been delayed because of Hurricane Camille, and my First Sergeant thought I could get emergency leave. It turned out I could not because he was not "immediate family." Though I was disappointed at not getting the leave, I did not cry or much mourn his passing.
The next death was my paternal grandmother. She died while I was in Vietnam. She had been the grandmother I had seen the most in my life, as she was the one who lived in Indianapolis. I had spent a lot of time with her, and she had spent a lot of time with the family. The Army people at my little compound in Vietnam were sure I could get emergency leave and go home. I think they were a little stunned when I decided against it.
I hadn't been in country that long, and even under the best of circumstances, the trip there and back would be expensive. Finally, after writing my father and thinking and praying, I decided not to go. The biggest thing that decided me was that I wasn't really upset with her death. I didn't cry. I haven't yet. I should also say that the last time I saw her was when my then-wife and I took her four-month old grandson for her to see for the first, and what turned out to be the last, time. Grandma was living in a cheap motel with some man she had met in a bar and married. She was drinking again and was skinny as a rail. I realized then that I would not see her alive again.
I was more sad about that than her dying. Alcoholism runs in my family. Not only was she an alcoholic, so is my Dad, and I suspect a couple of my siblings are, too. Perhaps being the child of an alcoholic makes me less prone to emotional attachments. I don't know.
My mother died in March 2001 after a lengthy illness and nearly two weeks in a terminal coma. I didn't cry then, either. I didn't cry when I learned that one brother died, and I didn't cry when my sister died a year and eight months ago.
I'm more apt to cry over a stranger's death than I am over any of these. I feel that there is something wrong with me, or if not wrong, then at least something in me I don't understand well enough to not be troubled by how my reactions and emotions are different from what I see in others.
I can't help wondering if I'm not so wrapped up in myself that I have no room for anyone else.
On the other hand, I do not seem to fear death as so many in society fear it. Death, to me, is what happens at the end of a life. I don't know that there is a "good death" or a "bad death." There is death. My preference is that there be less of it, at least in its violent or painful forms, but as with most things I encounter, my preferences are never taken into account when they conflict with universal truths. People live and people die and live goes on.
I suppose I'm just a cold-hearted bastard.
Al Fletcher died Thursday morning, and I've kept myself otherwise engaged so that I wouldn't have to write about it. I really don't know what else to say. I went with Al to a special Native American sweat lodge that lasted four days (and four very hot sweats). That's how much Al wanted to live. That's how much I wanted Al to live. The medicine man felt sure Al had gotten powerful healing and would live for several more years. It didn't happen that way. Al lived about two more months.
Why have I waited so long? Why do I feel so little at the death of Al Fletcher when I cried at the news of Peter Jennings' death? (I think that to answer the second part, never under estimate the power of television to manipulate our emotions.)
I seem to keep all death at some sort of remove from myself. The first close death I remember was of my paternal stepgrandfather, Grandpa Jim. He was, by all the accounts I've had, the best of my grandmother's husbands, and he was a good grandfather to me. He taught me things, he took me places, he helped me get a job one summer. His death came suddenly in 1969 while I was at Keesler AFB, Mississippi waiting to get into Radio Operations Tech. School. School had been delayed because of Hurricane Camille, and my First Sergeant thought I could get emergency leave. It turned out I could not because he was not "immediate family." Though I was disappointed at not getting the leave, I did not cry or much mourn his passing.
The next death was my paternal grandmother. She died while I was in Vietnam. She had been the grandmother I had seen the most in my life, as she was the one who lived in Indianapolis. I had spent a lot of time with her, and she had spent a lot of time with the family. The Army people at my little compound in Vietnam were sure I could get emergency leave and go home. I think they were a little stunned when I decided against it.
I hadn't been in country that long, and even under the best of circumstances, the trip there and back would be expensive. Finally, after writing my father and thinking and praying, I decided not to go. The biggest thing that decided me was that I wasn't really upset with her death. I didn't cry. I haven't yet. I should also say that the last time I saw her was when my then-wife and I took her four-month old grandson for her to see for the first, and what turned out to be the last, time. Grandma was living in a cheap motel with some man she had met in a bar and married. She was drinking again and was skinny as a rail. I realized then that I would not see her alive again.
I was more sad about that than her dying. Alcoholism runs in my family. Not only was she an alcoholic, so is my Dad, and I suspect a couple of my siblings are, too. Perhaps being the child of an alcoholic makes me less prone to emotional attachments. I don't know.
My mother died in March 2001 after a lengthy illness and nearly two weeks in a terminal coma. I didn't cry then, either. I didn't cry when I learned that one brother died, and I didn't cry when my sister died a year and eight months ago.
I'm more apt to cry over a stranger's death than I am over any of these. I feel that there is something wrong with me, or if not wrong, then at least something in me I don't understand well enough to not be troubled by how my reactions and emotions are different from what I see in others.
I can't help wondering if I'm not so wrapped up in myself that I have no room for anyone else.
On the other hand, I do not seem to fear death as so many in society fear it. Death, to me, is what happens at the end of a life. I don't know that there is a "good death" or a "bad death." There is death. My preference is that there be less of it, at least in its violent or painful forms, but as with most things I encounter, my preferences are never taken into account when they conflict with universal truths. People live and people die and live goes on.
I suppose I'm just a cold-hearted bastard.
posted by Tom | 4:04 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home