Can I speak about dying if I’m not dying, or do all my thoughts stay speculative rather than grounded in reality? At least, I don’t think I’m dying, and my oncology doctor says I won’t die from prostate cancer. Yet, sometimes men do. The American Cancer Society expects that 288,300 American men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in 2023, and 34,700 men will die.
So how can I write about the last ravens I will ever hear cawing noisily in the woods today if there’s a chance that I might return here? It’s like the Buddhist bell clanging and guiding the dying home. Even if I hear the bells, they aren’t ringing for me. I’m not going. Not yet.
To write of dying, I have to at least believe that I might be dying, that this might be the last time I hear these ravens, or any ravens. These could be my last days or weeks. People do die without notice. Yet a sudden death isn’t dying, either, because it hops over the period of dying when we can think and reflect on what is happening.
There is a necessary solitude when dying, when you need to be alone to understand what is transpiring, and discern what you want to do next.
I am grateful when people who are dying take the time to write about their experiences because it offers a view into an unknown land. It seems like the light in the sky shifts darker, yet colors seem brighter. Images and metaphors sharpen and deepen in meaning. Life slows down and they see life with new clarity, and notice small items of beauty around them that they hadn’t noticed before, as well as the shadows that linger on the edges of their days. I love the poems of Ilyse Kusnetz and Julie Hungiville Lemay because they took the time to write about their perceptions. We should listen to them.
It’s like holding a View-Master stereoscope up to your eyes. The two images come together and life comes into focus. Or maybe the image on the right is life as you imagined it was going to be, and the image on the left is how your life is.
What knowing I’m dying would do is take my life out of expecting-to-live-forever and place it on the timeline of the finite.
When I am actually dying, will I know? And will I have time to think about how this knowledge seasons every hour of the day? Will I feel grateful for the time to write about it, or will I get caught up in worrying about how the end will come? Will I be too busy saying sad goodbyes to everything that I have loved, and forget to say hello to what is new today?
One day I will be dying, and it will probably be an ordinary day like today. I will realize that I’m dying, and I’m likely to say something profound like, “huh.” Then my world will shift and I will know what dying is like. Every good thing will become precious, and every act of kindness will move me deeply. I suspect that I will no longer have patience for those who waste my remaining time, so you are warned.
Why am I thinking about this? I have a couple of idle weeks before radiation begins. Because I can’t think about that, I think about this. And what I can do is declutter my life. I can set aside what doesn’t really matter and spend my time on what does.
What each day has been ends with night. Each morning, a new day is born with all of its possibilities, and I choose to be part of this.
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