As life nears its end, the questions start

 

Over the past months, I have lost two friends. One, a 61-year-old to brain cancer. She opted for “voluntary assisted dying” (VAD), also known as “euthanasia”, which is legal in most of Australia.

Another, a 67-year-old. He died alone at home, at night, from a heart attack.

When friends die unexpectedly, the shocking news stirs up many questions with no ready answers. The mind tries to make sense of the non-sense. It reels back to those moments I had spent with them.

What was our last conversation about? A joke? An unsettled argument? Or nothing particularly significant? What was left unsaid, assuming there would be another time to catch up?

Yes, when kith and kin die abruptly, the mind does zero in on the order of life. When will my number be called? My friends’ lives ended mid-way. How will I complete the rest of my journey?

Once you’re past 70, you begin to contemplate death. Especially when friends and siblings, once full of zest, are now coping with all sorts of ailments, some terminal. Obituaries, once inconsequential, now seem relevant.

I felt that despair of a premature finality years ago when a loved one’s blood test results showed a row of suspicious numbers. The weeks leading up to the second test and biopsy were our longest. Our worldly concerns suddenly seemed trivial.

An untimely death was certainly not in our life’s journal. The results turned out negative. The dark cloud lifted as quickly as it came. That week changed our perspectives about living and dying.

Memento mori

We escaped the agony of facing the slow process of dying. Those two weeks got us reflecting about how we will live out the rest of our time. The ancient Romans called it memento mori (“remember you must die” in Latin). The concept points to how the ancients contemplated death as an important part of a life well lived.

Apple co-founder Steve Jobs had reportedly relied on memento mori throughout his short life of 56 years.

In a 2005 commencement speech to Stanford University students - soon after he was diagnosed with a rare form of pancreatic cancer - Jobs shared that, since his teens, he would look in the mirror every morning and ask himself:

“If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And, whenever the answer has been no for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

“Remembering that I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything, all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important.

“Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.”

Twilight years

I am in the final quarter of my life’s journey. I may or may not find my memento mori before my time runs out.

Meanwhile, age will gradually eat into my muscle mass (sarcopenia). The body will eventually weaken. The joints will give way. My mind will lose its lucidity (dementia) if I stop reading, writing, or engaging with my diminishing circle of family and friends.

Have I lived well thus far? What will I leave behind? That, I won’t know except for the few, or many, at my funeral, sitting through my eulogies - sensitively-worded but somewhat pointless.

The fragility of life reminds me of what a psalmist wrote more than 2000 years ago: “The days of our years are threescore years and ten; and if by reason of strength they be fourscore years yet is their strength labour and sorrow; for it is soon cut off, and we fly away.”

Come to think of it, imminent death isn’t much of an existential threat. We all die. It is the unavoidable physical and mental decay that bedevils.

Barring cancer, a heart attack, dementia, or Parkinson’s, most of us aim to age well past the average life expectancy (73.1 for males, 77.9 for females in Malaysia). Most of us hope to live to a ripe old age and die well.

Here lies the paradox of hopeful longevity. As the creator of “gonzo journalism”, Hunter S Thompson, who died at age 67, wrote:

“Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving safely in a pretty and well-preserved body, but rather to skid in broadside in a cloud of smoke, thoroughly used up, totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming, ‘Wow! What a ride!’” - Mkini

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ERIC LOO is a former journalist and educator in Australia and a journalism trainer in parts of Asia.

The views expressed here are those of the author/contributor and do not necessarily represent the views of MMKtT.