The Art of ... Dying?

I do not fear death. I do not fear the end of life, my life. I do not fear the unknown that lies awaiting on the other side, nor the Grim Reaper's image as painted by countless artists as well as one of my favourite authors - Terry Prachett. 

I do not think about death. About when I will draw my last breath, nor about how. I do not think of the number that the coroner would put in the space that says 'age' on my death certificate. Nor do I think about what it would state as 'cause of death.'

Like I said - I do not fear death.

But I do think about life without my key persons in them. And in that stand, I do fear death. I do think about death. I do think about the age at which death would come, and the manner in which it would present its gleaming scythe. But it is not of my own end of life that these thoughts are associated with. It is of those I count as my people.

I boldly stated two nights ago how someone is "not permitted to kick the bucket at 53 as per his prediction, cos I would only be 49 and my grand plan to get a cat to have endless conversations with, would only come into play when I turn 50." Even as I typed out those words, I knew that I could disallow, command, demand, stomp-my-foot and bawl like a baby, when the time comes, there is no way in hell that I could stop it.

Perhaps this is where my selfish side presents ugly self. Perhaps this is where my inner most fear bops its head over the surface of the dark waters where it lay in wait. 

I do not want to be the recipient of a phone call, saying that one has passed on. I do not want to be asked to identify if the cold lifeless corpse, made colder by the hard steel table top, is that of one I had known and love. I do not want to have to live by the memory of one, as captured in my mind's eye or in what we call a photograph. I do not want to whisper questions or thoughts into the light or dark, hoping to have a familiar voice answer it from another life.

I do not want to have to do all these, after one has gone on before me, and so I fear death and all it represents, despite being told that it really should be something to be feared. Life has been lived, and cliché as it may be ~ what's done is done. You can't go back and undo it at that point in time.

As it was said by someone I know who seem, to my utter disgust, to embrace wholeheartedly the art of dying ~ the only justifiable fear would be that you no longer can complete any more of the same good things that you have been doing. And I have been told over and over again, that if I live my own life along that thought, I would have no base, no grounds, to have the fears that I have when it comes to death. 

For the art of dying, is simply one that is not executed at the very end... but one that is done from the day you were born. I fully understand that, I do. If I didn't, I would truly defy all logic and go tell my dad that he should have really used protection that night some 34 years ago just so that I wouldn't be existing today.

Still... as with an excellent book that has absorbed me into its inked words... as with a moving musical with notes that lifted me up and across an astral plane... as with a meal offering dishes that made me want to contain each morsel whole in my mouth so the taste would go on forever... There will always be that pang of angst when you know something is drawing to an end.

And it is that 'pang' that I dread, do not look towards. 

But having said that, if among my people, one knew that the hands of their clock has been marked, the alarm has been set, yet choose to spare me of this 'pang' by withholding the possible departure time, it would be the most unforgivable act in my books of people-etiquette, despite all its plausible good intent.

For there is nothing more painful for one who has not mastered the art of dying, than having someone die on them before they've learnt the first lesson of living.