The Pride of Death

"And yet how little of our life is occasion, opportunity to receive good in; and how little of that occasion do we apprehend and lay hold of?" -- John Donne, from Meditation XIV

Too much death, of late. Not that any is ever exactly welcome. But there is a strange curiosity about our society's reaction to death--particularly of public figures, but also of the rest of us--and sometimes we're forced to reckon with it.

A friend died today, and it wasn't Michael Jackson, Billy Mays or Farah Fawcett; it wasn't Neda Agha-Soltan; it wasn't a passenger on an Air France or Yemeni Airlines flight or on the DC Metro: it was Jeffrey White, a journalist, my wife's friend from childhood. He died quietly at his home.

"Quietly" is a horrible word, because the death of someone dear always tolls at a deafening volume in the souls of his or her friends, particularly when that loss is too soon or too tragic or too unjust. Parents and widows of war know that sickening ring too well.

How does one respond to the death of a loved one? This weekend, I saw both "Up" and "A Year of Magical Thinking," two very different meditations on how the living react to almost unbearable loss. And we, as a culture, have been bombarded with reactions to celebrity death--one MJ tribute after another, snippets of loudly shouted "OxyClean!", glimpses of Farah's nipples. There have been tributes to political bravery and innocent accident, too.

What do we make of all this, how do we respond with something even approaching authenticity? In "Up," the bereaved Carl decides to embark upon the adventure he and his late wife always dreamed of, hitching his house to thousands of balloons and setting sail for South America. In Joan Didion's play, she resorts to "magical thinking," all the better to ward off, foreswear, avoid, and eventually accept the death of her husband and her daughter. I guess one could have a dance party for Michael.

Last weekend, I attended a funeral for another recent death, my Aunt Annie, aged 91. She was a Mennonite from Souderton, PA, and we sang hymns, reminisced about her life, buried her, and ate ham sandwiches in the church hall. The coffee was wan and the cake, disconcertingly, delicious. I got to meet old relations and heard stories of a life I can barely imagine. I bought raw milk from a local dairy farmer and saw the land of my ancestors. It was perfect.

But it provides little evidence for what to do when a life is cut too short. Annie was given 60 more years of life than Jeff, and that's not fair.

Not that the universe deals in fairness, or even some omnipotent God for that matter.

Annie had a chance to make the most of it, and did a grand job by all accounts. Jeff, too, took advantage of his one chance: life in Europe, a romance with his wife against the odds, a commitment to work even from his hospital bed. He lived, if briefly, a life full of days--as the Bible says--but those of us still living rail against the denial of his chance to "apprehend and lay hold of" all that he might, yet, have been offered.

I cannot say I knew Jeff well enough, but I knew enough to expect a vigorous laying hold, a stubborn refusal to simply accept, a rage against the dying light.

In the "Epic of Gilgamesh," the hero, inconsolable at the loss of his soul-mate, Enkidu, journeys to the end of the earth in search of immortality. He even has it in his grasp, but loses it, through simple human frailty. Despondent, he returns to the city of Uruk in ancient Babylon, and writes his story, ensuring an eternal life he would not know. That is one lesson from Gilgamesh, the power of words, not to forestall death, but to bring life into being, to build--with bricks or words--a legacy of living.

There is another lesson from Gilgamesh, in the story of the tavern keeper, Siduri: "Now you, Gilgamesh, let your belly be full! Be happy day and night, of each day make a party, dance in circles day and night! Let your clothes be sparkling clean, let your head be clean, wash yourself with water! Attend to the little one who holds your hand, let a wife delight in your embrace. This is the true task of humankind." I'm guessing Siduri had "Man in the Mirror" on the jukebox, OxyClean in her cabinet, a lover in her bedroom, and children she held dear (and didn't inappropriately bring the children into the bedroom).

That is, she does not call for sensuous debauchery, but offers a reminder to the living that one must keep on living, and do so with all the verve and gusto and fortitude we have. To do otherwise would be to betray the memory of the dead, to dishonor their friendship, to let death have more than its share.

Death has taken too much, already. May we all find more joy and life in every day. So raise a glass--Scotch, if you knew Jeff--and commence with the dancing. Maybe there's something to that dance party, after all.