Dear Reader,
Today is Wednesday. Wednesday is advice-column-writing day. Usually I write a column by answering a letter from someone looking for advice.
Today is a little different.
I have a friend who is dying. He hasn’t asked me for advice and I haven’t offered any. But all I can think about is how this friend of mine is dying.
I could try to answer a letter on another topic. But it’s hard to keep my mind on other things. That’s what happens when a friend is dying.
The sky is blue. Life is beautiful. A friend of mine is dying.
It makes me think: How marvelous it is to be alive, to walk down the street breathing air, to see all the colors around us, to hear music!
It makes me realize something else, too. I have offered advice to people on how to deal with the deaths of others, but no one has ever written to me saying, in effect:
Dear Cary,
I’m dying. What to do?
Signed,
Dying Too Soon
How could I possibly reply to such a letter? I could suggest that one accept the fact of death, etc., etc. But I try to offer practical solutions, and not pat answers like, Yawn, Death is a natural part of life, etc., etc.
So, not meaning to be flip, I might write back saying something like this:
Dear Dying Too Soon,
If you are dying and are unhappy about that and want to change it, the first thing you need to do is travel back in time. Once you have traveled far enough back in time that your dying does not seem so immediate a problem, just begin living your life as you were before.
If, however, there is no affordable time-travel service in your area, then simply find the disease or diseases that are killing you and cure them. After that, you should be fine.
That does sound flip, doesn’t it? I’m trying to make a point. You get the point, right? I don’t have to spell it out? Because you’re smart and you know what I’m getting at, right?
I know a little bit about dying. When I was diagnosed with cancer a little over five years ago, I got ready to die. Then I didn’t die. But I got ready. I’m still ready.
What I’m not ready to do is undergo treatment again. There were times undergoing treatment when I wanted to die. I can see how, having been sick a long time, a person might long for death with the same fervor with which he once longed for life.
If it weren’t for the problem of timing, though, nobody would feel like they’re losing out. We wouldn’t be missing you, and you wouldn’t be seeing us out here smiling and playing badminton while you’re slipping into the great unconsciousness.
Anyway, my dear friend, it looks as though you are going before the rest of us. That is not surprising. You were the first to do a lot of things. You were the first with a motorcycle, which you promptly wrecked, and broke your leg. You were the first to build a van so we could all pile in and travel the country barefoot and long-haired. You were the first to go to Europe when we all wanted to go. You were the first to kiss certain people we all wanted to kiss. You ended up with the best motorcycle and the fastest car and the biggest house. You were the tallest and the best looking and we were all proud to call you a friend. You were always a little ahead of the rest of us and we didn’t mind that. It seemed only proper. You’re ahead of us again.
Figures.
Go in peace, my friend. We’ll be right there behind you.
Words can be so hard to come by but yours capture moments, thoughts, feelings and wishes we all share. Thanks Cary.
Very moving and a fit tribute. I find LauraBB’s comment about LSD to be unintentionally ironic!
I’m so sorry your friend is dying, Cary. I’m trying to write about someone dying right now, someone who won’t go through treatment again, feeling perhaps a little the way you feel about it, and it feels like presumptuous for me to even try at times. I mean, how would I know what it’s like? Who am I to talk about such things? But then by the time I know what it’s like I’m unlikely to be in the right space to be writing a novel about it. And who are any of us not to talk about such a primal, universal experience if we are inspired to? So I try to think I must be learning something I need to learn by writing about it, or perhaps conveying something that needs to be conveyed, and I hope I write about it right, and I hope it gets conveyed as it needs to, and most of all I hope that for all those who know they are dying right now, that they find what they need before they go. Speaking of which, did you see the article on the use of LSD for people who are dying in the New Yorker this week? It sounded really interesting. I wonder if your friend would be interested … ?
thanks Cary — Thank you for such a beautiful tribute. thankyouthankyouthankyou.
J.K. Rowling quote: “Death is just life’s next big adventure”. I find that oddly comforting. Also, when Phyllis Diller made one of her last tv appearances on a talk show, she said she had had an operation and technically died for a short time. (obviously was revived!) The host asked her wasn’t it frightening and horrible, and she looked so surprised. “Oh, No. Oh, no, it wasn’t awful at all.” That was all, she didn’t elaborate. I find that oddly comforting, too.
I am sorry you are losing a good friend. It happens to all of us.
Amen, Cary. I’m going to remember this one.
So sorry, Cary. It’s so hard to lose a friend or a loved one. I suppose the knowledge that this will all end someday deepens the experience of living, but I can’t help but envy the animals around us who appear to have no idea of what’s coming.
Hmmm… the animals have no idea what’s coming ?
I believe the animals know better what’s coming than we do. How many years did I try to put a dying bug back on its feet (those good intentions) when it promptly flipped over and continued… dying ?
It seemed to know what it was doing.
No advice for you either, Cary. I am sorry about your friend’s illness. This is a powerful way to frame a bold person’s life and too early death: the warrior, the trailblazer heading first into the unknown. “Be not afraid. I go before you always.” That’s from a Jesus song. In myth is meaning.
Wouldn’t it be nice, though, if we could do the time travel or the quick cure? Just this once…