Tag Archives: Death

Thou Shalt Not Kill

A hapless clumsy spider tripped and fallen in the sink?  Everything stops.  Down slides a paper towel spidey-ladder to the rescue, and when the creature steps aboard, it’s lifted outside and set gently in the garden, tucked away with soothing words and soft warnings that sinks are not safe places for spiders to play.

Would that I were always this type of person.  Most of the time, I am.  I have copyrighted a method for depositing spiders, bees and other Godly creatures safely outdoors.  On the top shelf of a closet just off the kitchen sits a small margarine tub (empty) and a manilla file folder.  If the wee timorous beastie is clinging to a window screen or sunbathing on the kitchen counter, I sneak up, tub in hand, and move to hovering position about six inches from said bug.  Then, with the reflexes of a World Series pitcher, I attach tub to surface in one swell foop.  The other hand has been holding the file folder, which I then slip behind the tub.  Grabbing the edge of the folder and keeping a firm grip on the container, I lift off.  And voila – I march resolutely to the front door (pre-opened, which you could say presents more opportunities for bug rescue), walk outside, and throw my arms into the air, sending tub and folder flying along with my winged friend.  If the momentary prisoner is a spider, I’m far more gentle.  Either way, the bottom line is that the visitor lives.

One time, when I was on a silent retreat at the Insight Meditation Society in Barre, Massachusetts, I had a chance to reveal my skills to the world.  One hundred of us retreatants were having lunch, when I noticed a wasp high up on one of the big windows, frantically seeking escape.  No margarine tub in sight, nor a file folder.  There was worry, however, about what my fellow yogis would think of my probable action.  No thought of them thinking well of me for saving a life, just afraid of their criticism.  (Sigh)  I stewed only for a minute or so.  “Just do it, Bruce.  It’s a living being who needs your help.”  So I got up, went to the foyer where I remembered seeing a large laminated card listing instructions about something or other, grabbed the card, plucked a small bowl from its pile, marched back to my table, got up on a chair … and hovered, trying to push aside my fear of the stinger.  “But bowl against glass is going to make an awful noise!” …  “Good grief, please be quiet.”  Plunk.  Slide.  Grab hold with both hands.  Down from the chair.  Hip open the door.  Fly!

Then serenely back to my spot, eyes down to avoid likely stares, sit down, and resume my enjoyment of vegetarian lasagna.  And a deeper enjoyment as well.

So I’m pretty good with spiders and bees.  But then there are flies.  Those little so-and-so’s are too fast for my tub/folder trick.  So I’ve most often used a weapon of destruction – the fly swatter.  I have killed, many times.  All to avoid the buzzing, the alighting, the darned inconvenience!  Today, I vow to never again raise that long-handled piece of yellow rubber.  I vow to flick the little ones away, but not to crush the life out of them.  Thinking practically, flies don’t live long.  Thinking spiritually, I will let them be.  I promise you.

When Death Comes

When death comes, like the hungry bear in autumn
When death comes, and takes all the bright coins from his purse to buy me
And snaps his purse shut
When death comes, like the measle pox
When death comes, like an iceberg between the shoulder blades
I want to step through the door, full of curiosity
Wondering “What is it going to be like, that cottage of darkness?”
And therefore I look upon everything as a brotherhood and a sisterhood
And I look upon time as no more than an idea
And I consider eternity as another possibility
And I think of each life as a flower
As common as a field daisy, and as singular
And each name a comfortable music in the mouth
Tending as all music does towards silence
And each body a lion of courage
And something precious to the earth
When it’s over, I want to say
“All my life I was a bride married to amazement
I was a bridegroom taking the world into my arms”
When it’s over, I don’t want to wonder
If I’ve made of my life something particular and real
I don’t want to find myself sighing and frightened or full of argument
I don’t want to end up simply having visited this world

As my wife Jody struggles to stay alive, then despairs, then lets go … and does it all over and over again, I look at my own death.  After I die, I will be remembered fondly by many … for awhile.  My friends will go on in their ever evolving lives, most likely thinking of me less and less as the years pass.  Eventually they will all be dead and I will be an unknown person in historical time.  Maybe this blog will survive and some post will touch someone way down the road.  Or maybe not.  I realize today that I’m okay with all traces of me disappearing from the planet.  I don’t have to write that book.  I don’t have to resurrect my batik and have people enjoy the works of art I create.  I don’t have to burn my love into anyone’s soul so that it stays there eternally.

I don’t know what’s next.  Multiple lifetimes?  Sure, I’m open to that.  The candle of my soul flickering elsewhere in some unknowable realm of being?  Okay.  But perhaps nothing, zero, the void, the end.

I know that when my last hour falls upon me, I will be happy, at peace.  I can feel that already.  To die with a smile on my lips … I think so.  Looking back at countless moments of contact, not at achievements.  Looking back at silence inside, not the chatter of society.  Looking back at standing still, arms by my sides, head bowed, sufficient in the universe.

No Sleep

Late one evening at the end of January, Jody was transported by ambulance from the St. Thomas Hospital to Victoria Hospital in London, so that her collapsed lung could be treated better.  We arrived in Emergency and stayed there for some time until her bed was ready in the Thoracics unit.

I stayed with Jody overnight, mind racing, heart throbbing, doing whatever needed to be done.  Mostly just “being with” my lovely wife.  As morning broke, and my head was getting fuzzy, I realized that I had been awake for 24 hours.  And still there was stuff to do, people to meet, Jody to love.

As the clock struck noon, I was really fading.  A nurse would say something to me, and it just wouldn’t register.  People would walk by the room and they started looking like ghosts.  I thought about driving home to Union for some shut-eye.  I remember fingering Hugo’s keys in my pocket, truly in a state of absent mind, until I clued in to that being a ridiculous and dangerous course of action.

I could feel my mind collapsing, and I just had enough brain cells left to phone Rachelle, a friend of ours, and ask if I could get some sleep at her place.  She was happy to help.  We arranged a time for her to pick me up.

I wobbled my way from the nursing unit down to the Emergency waiting room, marginally conscious of people looking at me.  Oh so dully, I wondered if they thought I was drunk.  I spoke to someone to prove I wasn’t, and God only knows what came out of my mouth.

In the waiting room, I tried to focus on the conversation between an elderly woman and her daughter a couple of rows away, but it was a foreign language to me.  And I was nodding, then jerking myself up before my body would have hit the floor.

Finally Rachelle, smiling at me.  Good grief, what was she so happy about?  I told her I was in trouble but that didn’t faze her.  From the passenger seat of her car, I surveyed a strangely unfamiliar London as we headed west on Commissioners Road and then swirled through a bunch of side streets.

I think we sat at her kitchen table a bit, and I think I drank something, but I don’t really know.  Rachelle led me to a guest room in the basement, and I pretty much fell into bed.  Some inside voice said “You can’t sleep in your clothes” so I struggled with buttons and zippers before falling onto the pillow again.  It was 5:00 pm.

Five minutes later, I was still awake.  I sat up, terrified.  “I’m going to die of no sleep!”  That I remember – exactly those words.  “I have to find Rachelle and tell her I’m dying!”  It was so real.  I was dying.  I pressed down on the mattress to get up and tell her … and then collapsed back on the bed. Breathing fast and shallow.  Eyes stunned open.  Hands shaking ……

And then sleep … for many hours.

And today, I remain alive.  Having had a glimpse of oblivion.  Oh my.

 

Facing Death in 1970

I can only think of three times when death has been at my door, and they all happened during the summer of 1970, when I was working as a bus boy at the Prince of Wales Hotel in Waterton Lakes National Park, Alberta.  What was that all about?  What was I being asked to see?  Here’s one of the days that changed my life:

I loved hiking with friends in the mountains.  Our group had just passed over the Carthew Summit, a low point on Carthew Ridge, and were heading down to the three Carthew Lakes.  Bare scree slopes and below that we could see meadows of tiny white and yellow wildflowers.  What could be more beautiful?   Some of us were fast.  Carol, Paul and I, however, were drinking in the sights.  Off to the left, we saw about ten bighorn sheep,  and the curls on those horns were sure new to us rookie mountaineers.  A bit scary too.  Even more scary when the sheep started ambling towards us.

I panicked.  I didn’t know anything about sheep.  I had us run downhill towards some big rocks.  Between them, the scree slope gave way to a steep snowfield.  We nipped into the cleft between the rock and the snow, breathing hard.  I poked my head out from our sanctuary and saw a bighorn just above.  “They’re coming!”  I grabbed Carol’s hand and pulled her onto the 45 degree snow.  We were wearing running shoes.  I caught a glimpse of the turquoise lake perhaps 100 feet below – the snow dove right into it.

I lost my footing and started sliding on my stomach.  I smashed my runners into the snow and grabbed Carol’s ankles as she fell above me.  “Toes in!  Toes in!”  I didn’t think that but I guess my body did.  We somehow stopped, and I held Carol, as the white pressed against our faces and hands.  And there we stayed, with the numbness slowly taking over.

“My God, I’m going to die,” said my brain.  “I can’t swim and I’m going to die.  Carol too.”  As I let a likely death flood over me, I heard Paul above us say “I’m coming down.”  With rescue on his mind, Paul took a few steps onto the snow … and down he went.  The toes didn’t work for him.  He slid past us, way past us, and plunged into the lake.  Paul had told me at some point that he was a strong swimmer but that didn’t help him much now.  Carol and I heard huge inhales of air, and over my shoulder I watched him struggle in slow motion towards the shore.  His head went under a couple of times.  “O my God, I’m dead,” came from within, as Paul collapsed at the edge of Upper Carthew Lake.

Minutes later, once Paul had dragged himself upright, he said that he was going to run to Middle Carthew Lake to get the others.  Someone with hiking boots would save us.  And off he went.  Carol and I continued our numb embrace of the snow.  How long could I hold her up?  Would she just fall into me and take me into the water with her?

Finally, we saw little dots running up the trail towards us.  Once they reached the edge of the snow slope, they just stared at us for a bit, and then someone uttered some words of encouragement.  The snowfield must have been 100 yards long, and Carol and I were somewhere in the middle, about 40 feet above the water.

Ron, one of the hotel bellmen, said “I’m coming to get you.”  He started gouging steps in the snow with his hiking boots, and worked his way across with infinite care and slowness.  When he reached us, Ron cut steps just downslope from my feet.  I edged into them, and together we lowered Carol into other footholds.  She and I were dazed but standing up at last.  Ron turned back, and led Carol and then me across the face of the snow.  So slow.  As we got within conversation distance of our friends, a supremely loud “Crack!” noise assaulted our ears and the whole 100 yards of snow fell away into the lake with a “Thwump!”  I watched the snow crack away no more than two feet to the left of my left foot, and we later saw that the fallaway was undercut below our precious footholds.  We all ran … into the arms of our friends.

To be almost dead is to be very much alive – in the body and in the heart.  Forty-four years later, I often relive our Carthew adventure.  It wasn’t time for me to be taken.  There was a lot of living and giving to be done.  And there still is.