The OLD Philosopher – John M. Miller
When you reach a certain age, you start to think about death. At the latest, I started that process when I was no older than sixteen.
Sixteen is a tad early to initiate such a heavily-weighted exercise. But then, I admit that I was a rather unusual --- one might even say odd --- child and youth. My peculiarities have definitely extended long beyond childhood.
When I was just ten or eleven, I decided I wanted to become a minister. That would be the last thing most well-adjusted pre-teens would ever consider becoming.
I vaguely recall the circumstances under which I became fixated on death at such an early age. A group of teenagers were sitting in a second-floor classroom in the Christ Presbyterian Church in Madison, Wisconsin. I have no recollection of what precisely prompted that process, but in that moment I began planning my funeral, whenever and wherever it might occur.
It is probably fair to postulate that it was a tad unusual for anyone of those tender years to think such thoughts, but what can I say; I acknowledge a lifelong persistent death-obsession. I remember thinking that I wanted the hymn A Might Fortress Is Our God sung, plus a couple of appropriate (at least to me) scripture passages. Beyond that I had no other firm notions for the order of service.
Through the years I have Walter Mittied how I would die. It goes without saying that none of those zany notions has come to pass, or else I would not be writing this.
Nonetheless, this single-minded zest for death has never left me. Death scenes in movies and novels are among my most treasured. Poetry about death has been a particular favorite. “Death, be not proud,” said the Rev. John Donne. “Because I could not stop for death/ He kindly stopped for me,” said my favorite female poet, Emily Dickinson. My favorite male poet is Robert Burns. Here is a list of a handful of titles or opening lines from his numerous poems centered on death. Ae day, as death, that gruesome earl; A Mother’s Lament; A Prayer in the Prospect of Death; He who of Rankine sang lies stiff and deid; Death and Doctor Hornbook; Elegy on the Death of Sir James Hunter Blair; Elegy on the Late Miss Burnet of Monboddo. There are scores of other pensive poems in which death play the central role. Wonderful, splendid and inspiring they all are to me.
Robert Burns was only 37 when he died. He lived at the time of the American Revolution, and millions of people in the eighteenth century died young. Everyone then alive was confronted by death on a brutally regular basis. The Scottish Bard, by virtue of his multi-layered and complex personality, penned waves of words to acknowledge that unavoidable confrontation.
Many of Burns’ poems were not written in the voice of Robert Burns. By means of his poetry, the “speaker” could be a child or a young woman or young man or old woman or old man or prince or pauper or rogue or vixen.
Here is a magnificent poem for all old people who may be contemplating the relentless approach of that specter called the Grim Reaper. The lady telling the story is elderly herself, and she sings a love song to her beloved husband. (The meaning of a few of the unfamiliar Braid [broad] Scots words will be un-poetically clarified.)
John Anderson, my jo (joy, sweetheart), John,
When we were first acquent (acquainted),
Your locks were like the raven,
Your bonie brow was brent (straight);
But now your brow is beld (bald), John,
Your locks are like the snaw,
But blessings on your frosty pow (pate),
John Anderson, my jo.John Anderson, my jo, John,
We clamb the hills thegither (together)
And monie a cantie (jolly) day, John,
We’ve had wi’ ane anither;
Now we maun (must) totter down, John,
And hand in hand we’ll go,
And sleep thegither at the foot,
John Anderson, my jo.
I never felt old until I reached my eightieth birthday. Then I became instantaneously old. Now I am year and a half older than old.
Not everyone in advanced years frequently thinks about death, but some do. Intellectually and intuitively they know it is coming; they just don’t know when. It is acceptable for octogenarians to cogitate upon dying; they know in their aching bones if not in their shrinking cerebrum that it is approaching faster than ever before.
“Death, be not proud, though some have called thee/ Mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so:/ For those whom thou think’st thou dost overthrow/ Die not, poor Death, nor yet canst though kill me.” “Because I could not stop for death,/ He kindly stopped for me;/ The carriage held but just ourselves/ And immortality.” Or again, the divine Miss Dickinson: “I heard a fly buzz when I died;/ The stillness round my form/ Was like the stillness in the air/ Between the heaves of storm.”
It is, I am convinced, a useful and wise exercise to contemplate one’s demise, if only because our demise is inevitable. COVID-19, the Coronavirus Identified in 2019, has kindled my lifelong death-obsession as has nothing in prior times. I wonder: Is that cough the cough? I cough several times each morning, clearing out the phlegm-accumulation from lying all night with an involuntarily opened mouth, but is this an unprecedented and distinctly unwelcome hack? There is a stiffness in my bones; is it simply advanced chronology, or is it COVID? My chest seems unusually constricted; has the tiny red fuzzy sphere with the even tinier golf tees sticking up at all angles seized me in its miniscule grip?
Being a member of the clergy is an added inducement for a death-fixation. I have officiated at between five and eight hundred funerals. memorial services, or celebrations of life in my lifetime. If I were my greatly admired late friend, the Rev. Dr. John L. McCreight, I could tell you exactly how many. John kept meticulous records about everything; I have kept records of nothing, meticulous or otherwise. Yet I am convinced that a clerical calling leads many clergy (or at least this particular clergyman) probably to ponder death more deeply and more often than most other people.
As I have aged, I have ruefully come to realize that some clergy do not believe in the resurrection to eternal life. Having been in close contact with death so much, I can appreciate how these parsons might arrive at that conclusion. Nevertheless, having attempted to proclaim what the Presbyterian prayer book calls “a witness to the resurrection” in every funeral I ever led, I have always honestly affirmed that my faith leads me to trust that death does not have the last word. God alone has the last word, as He has from the beginning of the Big Bang. I believe that the affirmation of Jesus’ resurrection is the linchpin of Christianity. Easter is the ultimate preview of coming attractions.
The closer I get to what Mrs. Threadgood (Jessica Tandy) described as “the Jumping-Off Point” to Evelyn (Kathy Bates) in Fried Green Tomatoes, however, I am forced to admit that my own appointment with death could become more of a menace than an ultimate blessing. I have known too many people I loved and respected who were afflicted with varying degrees of dementia. Too many of us are living too long for our own good, and dementia is especially fond of attacking old people.
Therefore with increasing alacrity, I ponder what I would do if I thought a mentation dissipation were to seize me in its remorseless grip, and if so, at what point I would act on it. Of this I am certain: Should I conclude that I am falling victim to any form of dementia, I would, and will, take arms against that sea of troubles. I refuse to become a burden to anyone in a condition of being half-dead.
To date medical researchers have not found any viable treatment or cure for the mysterious onset of amyloid plaques in the brain. Because of that somber fact, Alzheimer’s disease and other forms of dementia are moving up the top-ten list of causes of death of the most senior of citizens.
The pace of dementia varies greatly from individual to individual. Some people seem to have no idea that it is enveloping their minds, and others are acutely aware of its advance. Everyone who suspects the silent invasion, or their spouse or offspring, should make sure they see a neurologist to undergo the tests which likely tell the tale. If anyone waits too long, dementia will rob them of the opportunity to exit this world on their own terms.
As I contemplate my own gerontological progression, I am not currently of the impression that dementia has arrested me, although I do observe small hints that I might be losing my ever-addled mind in other respects. I forget things from decades ago and from this morning that I should be able to remember. How did those memories manage to escape my memory bank? Now it is just irritating; sooner or later, shall it become maddening or frightening or alarming?
Physically I seem to be doing fine, and that I find extraordinarily encouraging. It is what is going on above the roof of my mouth that is the worrisome anatomical factor.
So in my wistful musings, I return to John Anderson and his own jo, his wonderfully poetic wife. They are slowly and carefully wending their way back down the hill toward their wee hoose ‘mang the heather. There, in the best possible circumstances, they shall both expire in bed some dark Scottish night only two hours apart, neither knowing that the other is gone. ‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
Very few of us shall be so fortunate. Most people die in some degree of pain, torment, anxiety, and/or disability. God has nothing to do with how or when or why we die. To all outward observances, it may appear to us that too many of us die too soon, too many too late, and hardly anyone at the proper time, whatever that is reckoned to be.
Only human beings have the mental capacity to determine the timing of their own deaths. No other species on our planet, except maybe lemmings, possess that ability.
The Greek word euthanasia literally means “good death.” In the contemporary world context, however, it has come to mean physician-assisted death. In the United States of America, only a few states permit euthanasia. Within that limited meaning, euthanasia truly is a good death, because it is nearly instantaneous and painless.
A bad death (that would be kakosthanasia in Greek, but such an awkward word shall never be used) is one that is painful, greatly prolonged, and feels demeaning to the one who dies. Relatively few of us die good deaths, however we might choose to describe that term. Thus most of us shall die bad deaths.
The good death, broadly understood, means living as long as we live and then dying swiftly, with little or no warning. It means living in good health as long as we live, then being mildly infirm for a very few days, weeks, or months. A good death cannot mean suffering excruciating pain or the gradual and debilitating loss of physical or mental faculties so that individuals cease to be themselves. It does not mean experiencing constant torment as people in decline wonder why dying takes so long. It does not merely mean existing in mental oblivion for years on end. How could such sad endings be considered good?
Since the beginning of the twentieth century, life expectancy in many countries and cultures has increased by thirty or more years. The older we become, therefore, the more likely it is that we shall be afflicted by a bad death.
If God does not decide when each of us shall die, then why do we meekly accept the ravages that death may thrust upon far too many of us in our advanced years? Are we ethically obligated to do that? If so, who is the obligator?
Because I might not stop for death, as Emily Dickinson suggested, I have become less convinced that death will kindly stop for me. Therefore I will end my life rather than passively waiting for my life to end. That is where my death-fixation is leading me.
In the past six months, we have all heard or read countless prognostications about various outcomes for COVID-19. Currently in the USA, its incidence is rapidly increasing. But no epidemiologist has felt confident in predicting what the long-term results of this virus shall be, individually, socially, or universally. We are left in the unenviable position of wondering about a lethal disease for which, at the moment, there is no cure.
Therefore, dear reader, I leave you with three questions. What are your thoughts about death? Do you think about it at all? If not, why not?
If you have never acquired a death-fixation, now might be a useful time to do so.
- July 17, 2020
John Miller is Pastor of The Chapel Without Walls on Hilton Head Island, SC. More of his writings may be viewed at www.chapelwithoutwalls.org.