This morning one of my coworkers showed up even more than usually morose and gloomy to work today. When my immediate neighbors and I were curious as to why this was the case, he explained that today was the anniversary of the birth of his deceased daughter, and that rather than working today, he likes to keep a graveside vigil and grill food today. Rather than look up funny pictures as is his usual habit, instead he looked up reflective poetry to express his own feelings of love and continued mourning for his daughter. To my knowledge, he has never been married, and he is certainly single right now, but at some point he had a daughter who is no longer alive, and that is not the sort of thing one gets over very easily, if at all. The circumstances would hardly matter, whether it was because of disease or accident, for one cannot look at a young life and see it snuffed out and wonder what sort of wasted potential there was in that little one, just as one cannot look at an elderly life that is forgotten and ending, and not wonder what wisdom will vanish into oblivion when that person dies.

For a variety of reasons, including the fact that I am a somewhat gloomy and intensely reflective person by nature, I have thought and written often about death. As a child, I would deliberately schedule trips to battlefields, where woods and meadows inhabit the ground filled with the graves of those who died by violence. One of my earliest poems, written when I was still in elementary school, is written from the point of view of a chicken who is reflecting on his imminent demise to serve as the raw material for fried chicken. Throughout my teenage years and adulthood I have written poems and obituaries for various deaths [1], be they rappers or relatives, celebrities, or those who were somewhat obscure. My own life is filled with the echoes of the dead, both those who have touched my own life in some fashion, as well as those from generations ago whose behavior shaped the course my life would take, often without being remotely aware of the importance of their decisions.

While I cannot speak at all about the experience of death, it is not difficult at all to understand various aspects of why the dead are mourned, even if they sleep in relative peace, we hope. Death brings with it a reminder that we are but temporary, and though we have cosmic ambitions, our lives are like frail candles that can be blown out by even a slight breeze or a too-powerful shutting of the door. Death is the mocking of our longings for a life eternal, which some people claim we have by birthright, but others recognize correctly is a gift to be paid in the future for those who are called and chosen. Between the dead and the living there is a great gulf, and the grave never loses its appetite for new souls, it would seem. Since we understand little of death, and know the absence of friends and family, of loved ones and even respected rivals and enemies who enriched our lives, we seek to speak about the dead in a way that comforts ourselves, for it is the living who are comforted by the rituals of death, and it is the living who see and judge us at least in part by the respect and honor we show to the dead. For someday, after all, we too will be dead and will have to trust the keeping of our reputation to the living, and we hope to leave our memory in good hands that will treasure our lives and respect us once we are no longer able to defend ourselves in word and deed.

In some of my darkest nightmares, I have been faced with a malicious torturer who has sought to mock me with the futility of my life, thinking death to be an end to my hopes and dreams. My reply, grimly honest, has been that whether I live or die, I win. If I die, my suffering is over and my tormented soul will be at peace, to be raised again in the resurrection of the just to receive eternal life in the Family of God. If I live, God is not through with me yet, and I will see better days than I have known before, and perhaps see what I want in my life when the time and the situation are right. Either way, I win; my life is God’s to direct as He wills, and mine to live as best as I am able. When I read Paul’s writings in places like 1 Corinthians 15 or 2 Timothy 4, or look at the chronicle of faith in Hebrews 11, I see the same point. For however long or short we live and breathe, our lives are like the vapor that vanishes in the morning sun, or like the grass that is cut and bagged or thrown into the fire. It is not the length of our life or the manner of our death that determines our worth to God, or how we will have shaped the lives of others. Rather, it is how we have lived our life in the situations we have experienced, in the presence of many witnesses, that determines how we will be judged and how we will be remembered by others in fond stories told over dinner or on social media, in the way that others will write about their memories of us, and in the way in which some trace of our lives will remain long after we are gone to continue to inspire and encourage others, even as they grieve over our demise.

[1] See, for example:

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/03/17/requium-for-a-rapper-nate-dogg/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/05/24/obituary-jacob-franklin-snyder-koontz/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/08/03/death-is-a-hungry-hunter/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/02/08/sometimes-i-think-im-the-only-cab-on-the-road/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2011/06/03/mi-epitafio/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2015/02/24/rest-in-peace-david-ekama/

https://edgeinducedcohesion.wordpress.com/2014/07/27/book-review-a-family-secret-a-rabble-rouser-and-the-unmarked-grave/