Cheerful Philosophical Musings On Death

I want to talk a little bit about death. This is apparently a touchy subject for people, so if it is for you, you may want to not keep reading.

Everybody is going to die. I'm going to die, you're going to die, my best friends are going to die, your relatives are going to die (if they aren't dead yet), everyone is going to die. Everyone. This isn't meant to be a mean statement, and to my thinking it really, truly isn't mean. It also isn't meant as some sort of threat or menace. It's just truth. Everyone dies.
In my dealings with (most) other people in the past decade I've noticed that they tend to get a little... antsy? jittery? anxious? upset? when this fact of life is mentioned. People apparently are scared of death, and because of that they will do lots of things to make that fear go away. One of the things they do is try to forget that death happens.

Early in my undergrad. years, I read a set of stories in Spanish class.

The first was the story of a youngish (we'll say 30s?) man who was a servant. One day he went into the market to get his master food or something, when he ran into Death. When he saw Death he was shaken up, because in most cultures (and I assume the one the story is told in), usually people only see Death when they are going to die soon. And then, something that terrified him even more was that Death seemed to grimace extra when he saw the man. Clearly, the man was on Death's shitlist. So the man ran back to his master's place and begged for the week off and the fastest horse or donkey around, 'cause he really really needed to visit his sister in far off Gargleblat (can you tell I'm not good at details?). The master agreed to the time off and the donkey on the condition that the man told him why he needed it so bad. The man said that he'd just seen Death in town and he was hoping to outrun/confuse Death by going to Gargleblat.
Of course the master then decides to go to the marketplace to see Death and find out what the whole deal is about. When he gets there, he asks Death why he grimaced upon seeing the servant. Death explains that he was just surprised was all, as far as he knew, he thought that tonight they had an appointment in Gargleblat, and it was weird to see the guy in Plonkville.

The second story in the set was written as a response to the first, and honestly I don't remember it nearly as well because it didn't really resonate the same way for me. In the story the man has reached Gargleblat and realizes that Death is still after him. He goes around town looking for someone to help him outwit Death, but as soon as anyone hears that tonight's his night they shutter the windows and kick him out, until he finds a guy who tells him that he'll help him. The man tells him that so long as he can survive till the morning, then Death won't be able to ever take him. Then they somehow beat Death with mirrors.

The first story treated fear of death as silly and misplaced. It framed death as an appointment, and Death not as a bad chap, just a guy with a job. The second story treated death as something to be avoided at all costs. Never dying was a reward for successfully besting Death. Death became an adversary. Lastly, it was unrealistic, since everyone dies (we'll put aside the manifestation of a fact of life) and at the end of it, the man is made immortal.

Everyone in my class liked the second story better than the first. Everyone, but me and the teacher. I thought the first story was funny. I liked that it looked at life head on. I liked that it admitted that death is going to happen.
Everyone in the class said I was morbid.



This past week I learned that my grandmother's situation is deteriorating. When she got her prognosis 6ish months ago, they basically told her that 6 months was on the outside of how long she'd have to live. So, it's not really a shock that this is happening now. However, one thing she's been firm on for a while is that she and my grandfather are not to talk about the possibility of her dying. She won't talk about it with anyone. Which means that she didn't get around to setting up the necessary steps for her to get hospice care in the home, should she fall into a coma (nor has anyone else in a position to do so). No one knows what to do, because if we all go see her right now on the likelihood that she won't be around in a month, or if we start putting pressure on her to get all the hospice/end of life care stuff worked out, then she'll feel pissed about us forcing her mortality on her

For context, you should also know that my grandfather's first wife (my mother's mother, who died when I was 2) steadfastly continued to insist that she was getting better and that the Goddess (or the Universe, or whatever) would heal her, right up until her death. Some of her daughters' last conversations with her were fights. So...

I'm conflicted, because on the one hand I definitely feel like everyone has a right to self-determination. If you want to shut your eyes and bury your head in the sand about your impending death, fine, do it. But it does harm people around you when you do it, and frankly I just don't understand it. I told my cousin this recently and he said he really sympathized with our grandmother. Which, again, I just don't get.

Then he said "not everyone is like you, most of us are afraid of death."

And I realized! Being depressed and wanting to be dead for all of my adolescent and adult life has given me the gift of less fear! I feel like a superhero: "Depresso Guy"!
Well honestly, if I was dying of cancer, maybe I wouldn't feel as nonchalant as I do about it right now. Admittedly, many things that seems cool in the abstract are fucking terrifying in the real. Like snowboarding. Tried it once, loved going fast, probably looked really awesome and such, until I realized I had no idea how to stop and started worrying about killing a child (ETA: *by going too fast and hitting hir*) when I got to the bottom. So I purposefully took a dive in the trees, pulled some muscles, decided that snowboarding wasn't for me, and anyway it was classist and exclusionary. (Sorry, off topic).
The point is, maybe I'm just deluding myself into thinking that I don't find death terrifying. Maybe I do, and in the long tradition of people who are scared of something and therefore convince themselves that they aren't scared, I say I'm not.

But I've got to say, the idea that maybe for once my Depression has given me something useful, namely the ability to not find my own death so terrifying that I shut down in the face of it, that's sort of cool.

Anyway, I hope your life, however long it is, is one which you generally enjoy.

Today In Things Any Disability Rights Activist Could Tell You

So, people are nosy assholes. Well, let me amend that. Many people think that your body (or your loved one's body) is totally their business, the second that you (or your loved one) have something that sets you apart from "normal."

Things that set you apart from "normal" include: being pregnant, having a visible disability, having an invisible disability (and telling people about it), being mentally ill (and telling people about it), being fat, oh, and getting one of the "big" sicks (including our good friend cancer).

Let me tell you a little story.
Once upon a time, there was a social work student (we'll call him GleeviantD) whose father had just been diagnosed with cancer, and who was understandably a little "not so happy" about this situation.
GleeviantD kept having the seemingly innocuous question: "hey, how're you?" asked by people that were somewhere between friend and acquaintance, though a little bit closer to "fellow students." GleeviantD was starting to loathe this question because answering honestly: "not too hot, actually" was sure to elicit the "oh, not too hot!? what's going on?" which, when answered honestly, brought the conversation to a screeching halt because cancer sort of does that to a conversation.

GleeviantD though also didn't like lying or pretending that nothing was going on because a) he wasn't that sort of fellow and b) he had a sneaking suspicion that at *some* point he'd slip up when talking to these not quite friends, not quite acquaintances, more like fellow students, and mention the cancer and then the conversation would still come to a screeching halt, only now it'd be months later and he wouldn't be in control of when it occurred.

So GleeviantD did what seemed right. He decided to tell a whole class at once about the cancer, right after a lunch break, so that he could not have the same damn conversation 12 times. In fact, it was Gleeviant's fondest desire that he wouldn't actually have to have a *conversation* about it at all, that if the information was given in announcement form, and he phrased it just right, he could preclude a discussion of the matter entirely and just get on with the damn lecture.

I'm sure, gentle readers, that at this moment you are ruefully chuckling to yourselves that GleeviantD was so naive as to assume that making an announcement whereby he said "I figured I'd tell everyone like this because it's tiring have to have the same conversation over and over again" would actually forestall anything. If you aren't, you may commence now.

So GleeviantD attempted to figure out just how to phrase the announcement in a way that indicated a) he did not want sympathy, and was in fact starting to get a bit sick of it, b) he didn't want to talk to people about it, and was in fact starting to get a bit sick of having heartfelt discussions with people about it and c) he was handling it just fine, he wasn't about to break down crying right then and there and was planning on continuing to attend classes and such. Something along the lines of "so, just wanted to let you all know that last week my family found out my father has cancer. I'm going to be the one driving him to chemo, I don't think this will affect me coming to class or anything, but I wanted to let you know so that you aren't surprised if I'm not all "whee! awesome" when you ask how I am. I figured I'd tell everyone like this because it's tiring talking about it again and again." Not perfect, but pretty close to achieving his communication goals. Or so Gleeviant thought.

Immediately, someone across the room decided to offer this helpful bit of advice: "I know a naturopath who cured herself of cancer naturally. I'll give you her phone number for your dad if you want," while someone next to Gleeviant offered this: "Do you have support structures for yourself? If you're going to be supporting your father you really need to get yourself a support structure." Gleeviant realized he may have created a monster that he couldn't control and tried as best as possible to (politely) discourage this line of discussion by telling everyone "right now I'm doing fine, if I need anything, I will be sure to ask."

After class, both people who had earlier felt the need to speak up, again came to GleeviantD this time to profer their advice and sympathy personally.
This time, when one of them just about tried to force the number of the woman who cured herself of cancer using herbs into the hands of GleeviantD, he had to bite back his tongue in order to not tell her "thanks, but we believe in science as opposed to miracle cures, what with replicable results" instead saying: "my dad seems pretty cool with the idea of chemo so I'm just going to follow his lead."

The moral of the story: people think that other people's bodies are their fucking business. They don't care if you've just said "I don't want to talk about it" they don't care to find out *what* you are doing as a caretaking method before telling you what you should do (or should want to do), and they certainly don't seem to care that it's none of their fucking business to offer help, unless you ask for help.

Let's all try to be less like those people in the future, ok? Or else we'll make GleeviantD quite pissy.

This has been a "Today In: Things Any Disability Rights Activist Could Tell You"