August 17, 2022

Reflection

DEATH

Everyone from time to time faces death.

Deaths trigger thoughts and feelings about death.

Death gets us to ask the question: "Is there life after death?"

Then the question: "If there is, what is it like after death?"

Death gets us to question our life.

Death brings up further questions: "Is there an accounting?" "Is there a judgment?"

The wife in the movie, Moonstruck, asks several people in the movie, "Why do husbands have affairs?"

She gets several answers.  The answer that jumps out of the movie screen is, "Death!"

People get scared of death.

Is that true?

I'm 66 and I'd like 10 more years - and if I make it to 76, will I want 10 more years? I wonder what my thought patterns on death will be like in 10 years.

When people ask about people who are moving towards death - people who are bedridden - or have dementia - the question of quality of life comes up.

I think of a couple - who live on my sister's street - in Pennsylvania.  It's noticeable how they walk together each morning - how extraordinary their marriage has been - she much younger than he is.

What is an extraordinary life?

Obituaries in the newspapers just give a bare minimum of statistics and data and dates.

Isn't it the unofficial obituaries that really count?

Much more important  - I would think - it's  the question and quality of life - right now - and up till now.

[It's now August 17, 2022 - and as stated in this piece - I wrote this back when I was 66.  I'm now 82 going on 83.  I was never in a hospital since my birth. - that is, till I needed a triple  bypass - on my heart three years ago - and then two years later a TAVR operation on my heart.  In those who moments I was blessed to have faced death finally. It's coming.]