At the End

The man was dying: there was no doubt about it.  Even he, who had been denying his symptoms, and then his diagnosis, could no longer escape the truth.  He had not drawn up a will, though he had considerable  holdings, and  in more than one country.  He'd been married, fathered several children, then divorced and remarried.  So his estate was destined to be complicated, to say the least.  Several members of his family traveled to his sickbed, trying to prevail upon him to settle his affairs while he still could. He would not comply, and subsequently died not long after.  The consensus was that he was a cruel and heartless man, who would not take the time to facilitate matters for his heirs.  That may  have been a true statement, but to look at it in another light, a human being, faced with imminent death, may well be so immersed in the process of having to face death that there  is no room for anything else. 
    We are groomed by today's society as to the necessity of looking beyond our own lifespan to put our affairs in order, to insure that those left behind can smoothly, and with as little taxation liability as possible, assume the potential burden of what is left after we are gone.  In older times, what was left was mainly property, the family homestead, which would usually continue to be inhabited by whatever family members wished to live there.  Unless you were royalty, most people didn't rely on written wills to divvy up the remnants of a life.  For sure, there were probably many family arguments as to who got what, but the point is the dying person did not have to bear the onus of guilt for not smoothing the path to inheritance. With the increase of discretionary income, and the prevalence of Social Security, there are many senior citizens, so I'm told, who never touch their Social Security benefits, but keep them in reserve for their grandchildren.  It's considered almost a duty for a person who statistically has not much time left on earth to make sure there is an unobstructed flow of assets to another generation or two.  Moreover, to make it even easier, seniors are encouraged to plan their funeral arrangements and of course to pay for them if possible.  To do any less is negligent and thoughtless behavior.  Many accept this as comforting and in accord with what they want to do, but these plans are made when the person is still amongst the living.  
      The knowledge you are destined to not live much longer, in terms of statistical probability, is much different from being engaged in the active process of dying.  No matter how generous, loving and caring a person may be in giving of self to others, there comes a point when all  thoughts turn inward;   that occurs when our modern and magnificent medical system relays the news that there is nothing more to be done.  You will die, are indeed dying now.
    Consider the instance of the man cited above.  He was a father, a husband, a holder of various other titles accorded to the life he lived.  But above all, and truest to his very self, he has always been alive--up to the last breath drawn.  Having to face the journey into what can not even be imagined must take precedence over all else.  The prospect of death, even more troubling, the state of not living any more, is exponentially much more  overwhelming than anything you can possibly do to  affect the fortunes of those who are still living.  From the day you drew your first breath until the time you draw your last, you belong to the giant membership of the living.  When you leave that club, you are forced to abandon all contact, and it seems likely that you no longer care about anything at all on this earth.  When the family approached the man on his deathbed, with pleas for helping them expedite his wishes, his refusal may not have been out of anger and meanness;  it could be possible that he had absolutely no interest in dealing with material things.  
The comfort of a settled estate promised to us by funeral directors and attorneys has no bearing after a person's attention is directed elsewhere.   Living heirs-to-be may blithely and gradually  accept the loss of their forbears as an inevitability, (which it is):   the dying have a briefer time to accept  their loss, which is everything and everybody mortal.
  

Solipsism

Is it solipsism or is it just me?

Streetcar

  I read today that the San Francisco streetcars cost the city millions in insurance payoffs due to injuries, and hold the record as the form of travel with the  most accidents.  I rode those streetcars some years ago when we were guest visitors at Stanford University.  Travel by streetcar was interesting and enjoyable and seemed safe enough for those of us inside the car, but where the danger seemed to lie was with those who hung on to the outside of the cars, which some passengers chose to do.   There was a small fee to ride, but that didn't apply to the young boys who just jumped on the outside platform, rode a block or two and hopped off at the next corner.  I winced at the sight, though I didn't see any of them fall to their deaths.  An added attraction was the entertainment at the ends of the streetcar runs:  the musicians who never quite made it, eerily reminiscent of the music of Willie Nelson or, later, Crystal Bowersox.

Running the TKR Gauntlet

   What doesn't kill you, well, can contribute to your being closer to death.  The course so far includes being nearly microwaved by an errant machine, a case of hyponatremia from an over-zealous regimen, and a routine dental cleaning morphing into a traumatic nightmare (I'm not exaggerating).  Help me, Obi-Wan. 

Looking Back----

   When I was in high school and prospects for attending any kind of college looked bleak indeed, because of financial constraints, there was one teacher who tried to help me find a way to continue my education.  He was my English teacher for 11th and 12th grades, and new to HVC in that first year, 1954-55.  He was young for one of our teachers, 28 years old, I think, and different from most of the old-timers in that he introduced us to sarcasm.  That first year, a number of students transferred out of his class, into Mrs. Hack's, because they were disturbed by his attitude, but, though I would never have acknowledged it at the time, I enjoyed what was then condsidered a somewhat edgy approach to the classroom.  English class was where I felt most secure, and the only high school class where I ever ventured an opinion.  I grew to enjoy the give and take of differences of opinion in discussions of literature, and did very well in the class, including the all-important English 11 Regents exam.  Mr. A. also conducted classes, an innovation at the time, attempting to prepare us for the New York State Scholarship Examination, as well as practice for College Entrance Exams which were then required of all college hopefuls.  I remember he asked me to stay after class one afternoon to tell me of the possibilities of "night school" which was then the only alternative if college expenses were out of reach.  Things were so different then.  I was flattered that he didn't want me to waste what he considered my intellectual talents, but even the thought of something called night school was overwhelming:  how the heck could I possibly get there?  My father was nearing retirement, he drove an unreliable old klunker of a car, and I was still years away from getting a driver's license.  As it turned out, both my sister and I won the prized and  rare at the time NYS Regents Scholarships, as had our brother the preceding year, so we were able to attend the tuition-free State University, but that's a tale for another time.
    The  English teacher who had endeavored to help me ended up marrying another teacher at the school and moving back to New York, where he became a Guidance Teacher, following his instincts as with my future, I guess.   I last spoke to him at one of our class reunions which he returned to attend with his wife.  He told me they had one little boy, named after him by reversal of his first and middle names, and who was enrolled in Catholic School.   That teacher is dead now, though his wife is still alive.  Both of them were good and decent people so there is no reason or justification for the terrible tragedy that befell them.  In 1987, their only child was sentenced to life in prison for a horrendous crime, one destined to be noted forever in the registry of such crimes.  Some things just should not happen.
    

MA(u)D(lin) MEN

Now that the show is back on Sunday nights,  it should be no surprise if the suicide rate escalates on Monday mornings.  The show's atmosphere reminds me of all those essay papers I had to write as a college English major.  By the time I finished writing at 4:00 A.M., my deep and introspective themes would have evaporated into the morning dawn, leaving me in the dark as to what point I had been  trying to make.  Oh, the horror!

Self-fulfilling Prophecy

Yesterday I developed a throbbing toothache, which last night transformed itself into pure misery.  I managed to wait until this morning to call the dentist; he prescribed antibiotics and pain medicine.  Today, there is a train track coursing between my upper teeth and my gums, the kind with the hand car  propelled by gandy dancers.  As soon as the car gets to the front center of my mouth, it reverses and swings back to its starting point, in the manner of a pendulum.  The dentist seemed to have been caught a little off guard, and he prescribed the strongest doses of medicines he could.  I've  seldom taken anything but aspirin and Tylenol, but I'm into it now, trying to head off the runaway train.