4/12/08: Diary of a Dying Man

On April 12, 2008 to my amazement, I have achieved the age of 75 years. The Bible, Psalms 90:10, declares: “The days of our years are threescore 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.”

I have beaten God’s prediction by 5 years and am still going strong. Today, modern science and the drug companies predict that we may be able to live to 110 years or longer. I ask myself, “But is it worth it?” Maybe “flying away” would be the best termination after a full lifetime of experiencing the best and the worst of what life has to offer.

I was almost killed twice as a small child because of sexual abuse. I survived hurricanes and seasickness in the U.S. Navy. My leg experienced 15 stitches from a chainsaw. I was divorced once and then experienced bliss as I took the marital step one more time. I’m still healthy, reasonably happy, but what have I learned as a Wisconsin farm boy, an afraid of the water sailor, a jack of all trades, reasonably intelligent male who was everything from a truck driver, forest fire fighter, ad man, author, poet, hospice volunteer, painter/potter/sculptor, an assisted suicide team member?

What does it all mean? Who am I and why am I now 75 years old? Am I another one of you who may have a day, a month, a year, or a decade or more left on this troubled old earth?

At this moment, my present hospice client, a 62 year old man who is in the final stages of dying of colon cancer, asked me, “ Why? Why me? Why, at this age? Why, when I came here to this godforsaken, always raining Oregon to care for my dying mother? Now, I’m dying before her. Why me? It’s not fair. What have I done to deserve this?”

He told me his story, his life story, 62 years of it. But somehow, it didn’t add up to much. Why was he put on this earth if it didn’t add up to much? And now, to suffer like this? His skin and eyes turning pumpkin yellow as the cancer eats his liver. He didn’t even make the bible’s three score and ten. Now he had to fly away; but to where, and would it be any better there?

So, I’m asking myself now; “OK, mister 75 year old smarty pants, what about you? What are you going to do with the rest of this ever-shortening end of your life?” My first best friend, Hawk, died at age 20; my next best friend, Dick, died at age 56; my next best friend, Alden, died at 62; my next best friend … and all of those other friends from grade school, college, the Navy, the ad guys, my running buds who were supposed to live forever … my God, I’m running out of best friends!

Every friend is a story. Each of our own lives is a story – or is it only a dream? Are all of our lives just dreams, to fade away after we awake (or die). And then what?

Wow, this is serious territory I have gotten myself into. Maybe I should start keeping a diary of these last days and weeks I find myself receiving, these gifts of moments precious which are given to me long after so many of my friends and hospice clients have already flown away?

Whoever you are who have discovered this blog, like a note in a bottle bobbing in the sea of errant electronics, stand by for the next installment of this Diary of a Dying Man. Maybe we can figure this out together. …