"Aren't You Afraid of Dying Alone?"

 

I've been asked this question many times, and my response is always this: "Nope.  People die alone or in the presence of absolute strangers every minute of the day." and then I usually follow-up with a "How do you know with any amount of certainty that you won't die alone?"

I watched my grandfather die - actually die.  I kissed him on the forehead, vowed to take care of my mother and grandmother, kissed him on the forehead, saw his troubled, sweating face release whatever he was struggling against, and I watched and felt his life slip away from his body.  It was as good a death as can be had.  No he wasn't alone.  I was able to comfort him (I think) in his last moments - not from death, but from the unfinished business of life.  I believe he heard me and understood my promise, despite the softball-sized blood-filled aneurism that was, at that very moment, ravaging his brain.  

His life was not his, not his alone.  He was losing his struggle with death, and the fear and frustration I saw melt from his face was not from fear for his own death, but from the obligation he felt as a living man, an obligation he could not lay down himself.  My presence would have given him no comfort, but my promise did.  He needed me to lay his obligation down for him, and take it up - and I did, and I do - often at great sacrifice.  I saw my grandmother to the end of her battle with cancer - she lived in her own home to the age of 97 with my help - I was happy to do it, and I did it with love, and it was appreciated.  I will see my mother to the end of her life, and that promise will be fulfilled.  I will not make another promise to anyone but myself.  No more duties, no more vows. I will not take up another obligation for the dubious comfort of  love.  I see no evidence of this "comfort" outside of fiction and drama.  None.  Mourning is not love.

I am not afraid of dying alone, or under a stranger's gaze.  I think I understand the impulse for that fear, but the reality is that marriage, family, offspring - these are not guarantees.  How many times have I heard nursing home nurses (my mother included) speak of wives  who essentially say "call me when it's over, otherwise don't call me."  How many times have I seen old men die just months after becoming widowers?  The social narrative would quickly proclaim "See, he needed a wife - he didn't know how to take care of himself".  Bullshit.  He buried his function in his wife's casket.

He buried his identity "husband, provider, protector".  No bridge clubs for him, no "red hats" - he'd long since relinquished the "selfish" past times he once used to commune with friends.  His new friends were other husbands, towed along to visit, he made transient friends quickly or struck up awkward conversations with complete strangers on shopping mall benches, once his knees were too unsteady to carry the things she purchased and for which he paid.  The circumstantial visits suddenly became infrequent. and now faced with the prospect of having to adopt a new identity, once again, he suddenly felt dead tired - maybe he'd seek out a widow at his church, someone who would outlive him, someone to serve once more.  Or maybe it was just time to rest.

I've spoken with and known men and women with no one left to mourn them.  They are not pitiful.  Pity is projected upon them against their will, without their permission, by the arrogance of the living.  That IS sad, but it's sadness for the sake of the living, not the dying, or the dead.

It's difficult to watch people fade and die. It's gut wrenching.  It's exhausting.  It sucks.  Why would I want to put someone (especially someone I care about) through that, for a sense of some airy mythical comfort I have never experienced or observed in life?   I believe in the hereafter - I take comfort in that, not in the prospect of being missed.  I truly believe that the sympathy of the dying for the living is greater.  Only the dead and dying know better.

I want to be the man I am now when I die, only better.