Final Reflections
I am struggling with my faith and struggling with anxiety. I am a 22 y/o married woman and I am pretty happy. Since I was around 15 I have been scared to die (I obsess over it) and have terrible anxiety and panic attacks regarding life,sickness and of course death. As a child I went to church ,had complete faith in where I was going when I died and never questioned god. As I am getting older I have so many more questions and don't have faith like a child anymore, I am confused with the meaning of life. I have been to a councellor about my anxiety, but I know the only thing that will help me is prayer and faith in the Lord. If anyone has advice on what I can do to help this fear of death/the unkown I would appreciate it so much.
The death of my mother last month has brought into focus some of your concerns.
Your feelings are real, important, and universal. When I was about your age, I had a strange near death experience that left me with a utter fearlessness of death. (It didn't make me more religious-- just less anxious.) What you would have seen is someone in a pool of blood moving like a half squished beetle. What I felt was a floating sense of warmth, serenity, and calm, a bit like when you can sleep late on a Saturday morning knowing that you don't have a care in this world for the coming day. The jagged edge between extinction and life produces all kinds of emotions, from hysteria to prayer, and I'm sure those emotions were in full force last week when the US Airways jet ditched in the Hudson river last week.
In thinking about my mother's death, I've come to a few conclusions, for what they are worth, about dying, death, and grief. First, there is nothing romantic or wonderful about dying. It's an ugly, grotesque process-- an ambush-- a nasty deal-- and strangely a mirror of birth with its humilations, sights, sounds, and smells. It is never fair and there are always loose ends. There aren’t always times to say good by. Unlike the movies, it is unlikely that you wil hear any last parting profound words. What I heard was almost too painful to recall-- barely audible grunts.
We are all looking into our grave. As Ryan White, the teenager who died of AIDs, said, “We are all dying.” In a movie, two honeymooners are standing at the rail of an ocean liner. “If I were to die tomorrow, the young women says to her husband, “I would feel that my life had been full because I have known your love.” They kiss and then move away revealing the name of the ship on the life preserver: Titanic. In my mother's case, she died of voluntary starvation in accordance with the terms of her living will, and yet, during the week or so that she lived, still retained some consciousness. It was hard for me to accept that, and as much as I honored my mother's desires, I resolved that should that ever happen to me, I want to be unconscious from the moment the living will is activated until my death.
At present US mortality rates, 25 percent of Americans die before they reach 65. The one certitude that theists and atheists accept is physical death. Man, as Shakespeare said, is the “quintessence of dust” and “men must endure their going forth even as their coming.” You are but 22 years of age, and your entire life stretches in front of you. Whether you are a theist or an atheist, it seems to me we can all agree that we can make the life we have matter by living as fully as we can each day that we have.
The question is whether death is extinction and annihilation of all that I am. Is death a pilgrimage or a destination? “Now I am about to take my last voyage—a great leap in the dark,” said the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. What will happen to you die? Nothing, the materialist says. What will it matter if famine unchain their wrath again you, while you lie comfortable in your grave consumed by honest worms, neither dreaming nor snoring. No regrets will linger in your tomb to mingle with the larvae that batten your melting flesh.
For the Christian, it is the death of the soul, not physical death that is our enemy. “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so.” John Donne wrote. “On short sleep past, we wake eternally/And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!” To pass from life to death is not such a terrible thing. The experiment has been made countless times. We are all aware of the transitional nature of life and fame, that the seasons of life pass us by as relentlessly as autumn to winter.
Death, for all its ugliness, gives nobility and poignancy to life. When I look at a gravestone or a coffin, I sometimes think that “Therefore but for the grace of God, goes a better man than I.” Death bids us to slow down and wake up. A cabdriver pointed out to me it was a beautiful day, and indeed it was. I just hadn’t noticed it. I complain when it’s too hot or too cold, and don’t notice it when everything is perfect. For all of us, someday the electroencelogram’s sine will flatten. As the Tibetan author Sogyal Rinpoche says, “If you’re having problems with a friend, pretend he’s dying—you may even love him.” The columnist Joseph Sobran wrote that “When I consider that I am going to die someday, a thought that occurs to me more often now, I feel a sad affection for people who otherwise irritate me. I begin to appreciate them and to think of what I have in common with them. Sharp differences soften. Maybe we should begin our farewells a little earlier than we usually do.” H.L. Mencken, was perhaps unwittingly pious when he noted that “If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have a thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.”
The one thing my mother would not want me to be is to be morbid and gloomy, and she would want me and my kids to enjoy all that life as to offer-- dinners and concerts and fun with the children. And that is exactly how I plan to honor her.
To life!
The death of my mother last month has brought into focus some of your concerns.
Your feelings are real, important, and universal. When I was about your age, I had a strange near death experience that left me with a utter fearlessness of death. (It didn't make me more religious-- just less anxious.) What you would have seen is someone in a pool of blood moving like a half squished beetle. What I felt was a floating sense of warmth, serenity, and calm, a bit like when you can sleep late on a Saturday morning knowing that you don't have a care in this world for the coming day. The jagged edge between extinction and life produces all kinds of emotions, from hysteria to prayer, and I'm sure those emotions were in full force last week when the US Airways jet ditched in the Hudson river last week.
In thinking about my mother's death, I've come to a few conclusions, for what they are worth, about dying, death, and grief. First, there is nothing romantic or wonderful about dying. It's an ugly, grotesque process-- an ambush-- a nasty deal-- and strangely a mirror of birth with its humilations, sights, sounds, and smells. It is never fair and there are always loose ends. There aren’t always times to say good by. Unlike the movies, it is unlikely that you wil hear any last parting profound words. What I heard was almost too painful to recall-- barely audible grunts.
We are all looking into our grave. As Ryan White, the teenager who died of AIDs, said, “We are all dying.” In a movie, two honeymooners are standing at the rail of an ocean liner. “If I were to die tomorrow, the young women says to her husband, “I would feel that my life had been full because I have known your love.” They kiss and then move away revealing the name of the ship on the life preserver: Titanic. In my mother's case, she died of voluntary starvation in accordance with the terms of her living will, and yet, during the week or so that she lived, still retained some consciousness. It was hard for me to accept that, and as much as I honored my mother's desires, I resolved that should that ever happen to me, I want to be unconscious from the moment the living will is activated until my death.
At present US mortality rates, 25 percent of Americans die before they reach 65. The one certitude that theists and atheists accept is physical death. Man, as Shakespeare said, is the “quintessence of dust” and “men must endure their going forth even as their coming.” You are but 22 years of age, and your entire life stretches in front of you. Whether you are a theist or an atheist, it seems to me we can all agree that we can make the life we have matter by living as fully as we can each day that we have.
The question is whether death is extinction and annihilation of all that I am. Is death a pilgrimage or a destination? “Now I am about to take my last voyage—a great leap in the dark,” said the philosopher Thomas Hobbes. What will happen to you die? Nothing, the materialist says. What will it matter if famine unchain their wrath again you, while you lie comfortable in your grave consumed by honest worms, neither dreaming nor snoring. No regrets will linger in your tomb to mingle with the larvae that batten your melting flesh.
For the Christian, it is the death of the soul, not physical death that is our enemy. “Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/Mighty and dreadful, for thou are not so.” John Donne wrote. “On short sleep past, we wake eternally/And death shall be no more; Death, thou shalt die!” To pass from life to death is not such a terrible thing. The experiment has been made countless times. We are all aware of the transitional nature of life and fame, that the seasons of life pass us by as relentlessly as autumn to winter.
Death, for all its ugliness, gives nobility and poignancy to life. When I look at a gravestone or a coffin, I sometimes think that “Therefore but for the grace of God, goes a better man than I.” Death bids us to slow down and wake up. A cabdriver pointed out to me it was a beautiful day, and indeed it was. I just hadn’t noticed it. I complain when it’s too hot or too cold, and don’t notice it when everything is perfect. For all of us, someday the electroencelogram’s sine will flatten. As the Tibetan author Sogyal Rinpoche says, “If you’re having problems with a friend, pretend he’s dying—you may even love him.” The columnist Joseph Sobran wrote that “When I consider that I am going to die someday, a thought that occurs to me more often now, I feel a sad affection for people who otherwise irritate me. I begin to appreciate them and to think of what I have in common with them. Sharp differences soften. Maybe we should begin our farewells a little earlier than we usually do.” H.L. Mencken, was perhaps unwittingly pious when he noted that “If, after I depart this vale, you ever remember me and have a thought to please my ghost, forgive some sinner and wink your eye at some homely girl.”
The one thing my mother would not want me to be is to be morbid and gloomy, and she would want me and my kids to enjoy all that life as to offer-- dinners and concerts and fun with the children. And that is exactly how I plan to honor her.
To life!
Labels: Death
posted by My Mall and News at
8:01 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home