…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in Mankind; And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls; It tolls for thee. – John Donne from Meditation XVII
I have reached the age where I know death. No longer does it sit quietly on some illusive shelf, a token memory of a beloved elder. I wade in its reaching waters, part of the murkiness, the ugliness and sadness that death encompasses. And the finality.
In this year alone I watched death take my grandfather, scared and angry. Already totally lost to the world that staged his life and unable to recognize the people who filled the scenes death cruelly rendered him unrecognizable to those very people. Alone, weeks later, my grandmother followed and due to the proximity of one death to another her body lies in an unmarked slot in an unfamiliar mausoleum some distance from the tomb she and my grandfather had chosen that bears their names.
My aunt who also bore the title of my godmother died near Easter, the church where she lay awash in white lilies. A small town of people who knew and loved her filled the church and shared their grief with my inconsolable uncle (and godfather) and his children. Children, while grown (and some of them with grown children of their own) demonstrated the difficulty of breaking the interwoven strings that tie a mother to her children at every age.
During the course of the week or the month I learn about people who have died, people younger than I am, with families and seemingly good health. Sudden heart attacks or quiet ends to long struggles are included in the banter of every day conversation with friends. Deaths of familiar people from the community are discussed on a busy sidewalk downtown or in the grocery aisle between the coffee and the cereal. Random, unexpected accidents splay their fingers just far enough away from me that my mundane daily routines remain uninterrupted but I know death hovers. I have reached that age.
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