On Mortality: The Trench

 

In the Trenches, World War I Museum. Kansas City, Missouri. January 2010. Credit: Mzuriana. 

My mortality. 

I've been thinking of this, of late. 

Neal Stephenson, in Fall (or Dodge in Hell), described the process of such thoughts for some of us.  

"He saw life as a trench in the First World War sense of that term, dug very deep at one end but becoming more shallow as you marched along, gradually ramping up to surface level. 

Early in your life you were so deep down in it that you didn't even know that shells were bursting and bullets zipping over its top. 

As time went on these became noticeable but not directly relevant. 

At a certain point you began to see people around you getting injured or even killed by stray bits of shrapnel, but even if they were good friends of yours, you knew, in your grief and shock, that they were statistical aberrations. 

The more you kept marching, however, the more difficult it became to ignore the fact that you were drawing closer to the surface. 

People in front of you died singly, then in clusters, then in swathes. 

Eventually, when you were something like a hundred years old, you emerged from the trench onto open ground, where your life span was measured in minutes. 

Richard still had decades to go before it was like that, but he'd seen a few people around him buy the farm, and looking up that trench he could see in the great distance - but still close enough to see it - the brink above which the bullets flew in blazing streams. 

Or maybe it was just the music in his headphones making him think thus."

With both of my parents now dead, I'm at the head of the line. A sobering thought. 

Until very recently, my goal was simply to enjoy a good quality of life for as long as possible, and as independently as possible, without placing an unrealistic burden on my descendants. 

But a few days ago, I thought to put a number on it. 

If I look at the longevity of both my maternal and paternal parents, grandparents, and blood-related aunts and uncles - plus my generation's better nutrition, access to health care, advances in health treatments, etc. - I had a vague assumption that my early 90s would not be unrealistic. 

Some of that is magical thinking, to some extent, because my father died in his mid-70s and his mother died in her 50s. 

I thought to put a number on it because I wondered: How many years do I have left, really? 

And if I put a number on how many years I have left, how will that guide my allocation of time and other resources to: 

• Achievements I still want to accomplish? 
• Experiences I want to have? 
• Relationships I want to nurture?
• Relationships I need to let go?
• New relationships I want to find? 
• For my descendants, leave a legacy of love, a current and past family history, connectedness, memories, and investments in their and their descendants' futures, whether tangible or intangible. 

So I've applied the WAG method to come up with a concrete number for myself. 

86 

So if I make that 20 years from today, that's June 13, 2042. 

42. 

 Oh my gosh. 

42. 

The answer to the question in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: 

What is the meaning of life? 

42. 

It is poetic. 

Inshallah. 

End of Life: Advance Directive

 

End of the Appalachian Mountains. Tannehill Ironworks Historical State Park, Alabama. November 2020. Credit: Mzuriana.

I pondered about this post's category. Should I prefix it death or should I use end of life? 

Perhaps it should be: End of the Fourth Age. 

Or just The End. Or Almost the End. 

Wait. In keeping with this blog's subtitle, A Travel Journal From the Land of Age: 

• End of the Road
• Winding Down
• Going Home
• Travel's End
• Last Stop

Bringing mine up to date

I completed my first advance directive more than 15 years ago, when I was still married and a different state was my legal residence. My husband was my primary health care agent, and my adult daughter, Kit, the backup. 

Very recently, I drew up a new advance directive, which:

1. Declared my daughter as my primary health care agent; and
2. Used a template from the state of my current legal residence.  

My local library provides free notary services, and I availed myself of that useful benefit. 

Where is it? 

• I mailed my daughter a print copy of the new advance directive. 
• I uploaded a scanned copy onto a cloud account that I share with my daughter.
• The original is in a plastic sleeve on my refrigerator, along with the contact information for my daughter and my primary healthcare provider. 

Resource

CaringInfo.org shares good, basic information about advance directives in plain language:

1. What is an advance directive? 
2. Download and complete your state's advance directive template
3. Creating your advance directive
4. Storing and retrieving your advance directive
5. About digital and video advance directives
6. POLSTS (Physician Orders for Life Sustaining Treatment)
7. Power of attorney
8. Choosing a healthcare agent

Rearview sunset on I-10 in Texas. September 2017. Credit: Mzuriana.

Funereal Thoughts: A Joke

 

Sweets, Bowie  Bakery, El Paso, Texas. March 2017. Credit: Mzuriana.

There was a very old man. 

Bedridden, fragile, so weak.

Death stood near. 

One day, he awoke to scrumptious smells emanating from his kitchen. His favorite baked goods! There were also savories. Tiny bacon and swiss cheese quiches! Barbecue pulled pork! Homemade baked beans! 

The fragrances so seduced the old man that he struggled to remove the sheet and blanket that covered his failing body, then he half-fell and half-stepped out of his bed, then carefully, for fear of falling, he lowered himself to the floor. The old man crawled - oh so slowly - from his bed, through his bedroom, down a corridor, and into his dining room, whereupon he spied atop the dining room table, an array of sweets and savories. 

Trembling with both desire and fatigue, the old man crept to the table. 

He arrived. Tremulously, he reached up his arm and grasped hold of a fat pastry. He lifted it shakily, his mouth opening in anticipation of a sweet bite.

His wife loomed suddenly. Her hand slapped his away, and the pastry dropped back onto the table. 

"That's for after the funeral!" 

Funereal Thoughts: Back Stories

 

Rose in El Paso Municipal Rose Garden. El Paso, Texas. May 2019. Credit: Mzuriana

The fragrance of roses

When still in high school, I worked at the high-end fragrance counter at the flagship store of The May Company. 

The experienced saleswoman at that counter introduced me to Joy Perfume by Jean Patou (now defunct for the most part), which she said was the most expensive perfume in the world. Indeed, it branded itself as "the costliest perfume in the world." (I learned later that this wasn't quite accurate, but still, it was and is damned dear.)

Joy by Jean Patou, vintage ad. Source: Fragrantica.

At her invitation, I took a whiff. 

Oh, I thought, underwhelmed. Funerals. 

My paternal grandparents owned a funeral home

When I was a child, my family spent many a holiday, especially around Christmas, at the funeral home. The family living quarters were split between the basement level and the second-floor bedrooms. On the main level were the viewing rooms, the gathering rooms for the grieving, the funeral office, and the embalming rooms. 

The fragrance of roses, emanating from wreaths and sprays and urns, dwelt on the main floor, as did the dead. 

I felt no creepiness about vacationing among the dead and their grieving families and friends, and I have no negative associations between roses and death. 

Nevertheless, anointing myself with the fragrance of funerals is not the aromatic statement I wish to make. 

Cemetery. Grand Coteau, Louisiana. March 2015. Credit: Mzuriana

My father's funeral

My father's death was not unexpected; he'd been in hospice care at home for some time. My mother and two siblings were with him when he died. 

When he died at age 75, on the cusp between "young-old" and "middle-old," I accompanied my mother to the funeral home, to the florist, and to other funereal stops. 

A rite of passage: Shadowing an elder to learn how to arrange a loved one's funeral. 

My mother's funeral

At the time my mother arranged for my father's funeral, she - a pragmatic woman - decided to pre-plan and pre-pay for an almost-identical funeral for herself, which would come 15 years hence at the age of 91. 

She wrote out her entire plan, and also instructed me verbally. The instructions included three important features: 

• She would be buried in a pretty, white cotton nightgown.
• In her hands would be a book that she would enjoy reading in her eternity; not the Bible. (One of her brothers was buried with a Wall Street Journal.)
• Ave Maria would be sung at her funeral. 

She wrote out her own obituary, keeping it formulaic, and indeed, bland. Fortunately, I was asked to write a blurb for her funeral Mass program, and thus had the freedom to bring color to the summary of her life essence. 

We honored all of her wishes, and her final gathering was a lovely one, to the surprise of no one, as she'd always been an accomplished hostess. 

My funeral plan

As a new arrival in the Land of Age, it is wise to consider my own demise. Travel insurance, you might say. A courtesy to my daughter. 

I wrote up my funeral preferences years ago, but it's been years since I pulled it out from whatever archival resting place I interred it, and so I have to go dig it up. 

San Lázaro Cemetery, Antigua, Guatemala. April 2016. Credit: Mzuriana.

The Five Remembrances ~ or ~ Memento Mori

 

Day of the Dead, Concordia Cemetery. El Paso, Texas. October 2016.

Recently I came upon The Five Remembrances. 

1. I am of the nature to grow old. There is no way to escape growing old.
2. I am of the nature to have ill health. There is no way to escape ill health.
3. I am of the nature to die. There is no way to escape death.
4. All that is dear to me and everyone I love are the nature to change. There is no way to escape being separated from them.
5. My actions are my only true belongings. I cannot escape the consequences of my actions. My actions are the ground upon which I stand.

Thich Nhat Hanh's version of an early Buddhist scripture

Cemetery, Mtatsminda, Caucasus Georgia. April 2012.

Numbers 4 and 5 provoke pause. And some urgency, because of numbers 1, 2, and 3.

I am reminded of a 12-step aphorism: We tend to judge ourselves by our intentions; others judge us by our actions. 

Cemetery. Cheyenne, Wyoming. May 2016.