It doesn't take long.

A personal reflection on death.

“The age-old law is: everyone must die.” Sirach 14:17

In a graveyard I have been
A body I have seen
From the sharp moon, I had dreamed
That body was me

---

When we are small, loss takes the form of a broken toy or mom leaving us alone for just enough time that we start to worry. Perhaps we lose sight of her in a crowd or suddenly find ourselves all by ourselves in the grocery store. In these moments, we begin to get a little taste of death, though we haven’t yet begun to grasp the concept.

For myself, the first death I distinctly remember was the death of my pet fish. I haven’t any clue how long it was alive and frankly have almost no memory of it when it was alive, save perhaps for a faded recollection of dropping some pellets in its glass bowl, the kind you see in cartoons.

As for the first death of a person I remember, it was John Wayne on the TV. That memory will never leave me. I was watching The Alamo (1960) with my parents. I grew up watching a lot of old westerns thanks to my father. John Wayne was my favorite. I couldn’t tell you the names of the characters he played. That made little difference. My mind hadn’t made the distinction between reality and the fiction playing out on the screen. As far as I was concerned, John Wayne was a cowboy and he was quite real. He was a hero, and he always won. The bad guys always lost. When I sat down to watch The Alamo, I expected the usual: John Wayne and those he was with would fight the bad guys, and they would come out victorious. Naturally, I had no clue what the Alamo was or what happened historically. As I watched events unfold, I fully expected the Americans to win. One by one, however, the good guys fell and the Mexicans overran the Alamo. But surely not John Wayne. He can’t die. He is invincible and he is the good guy. Things came crashing down when he was stabbed. Just moments later, he blows himself up, and the last Americans perish. I was in shock. Being a child, I couldn’t quite put together that what I was watching wasn’t real. Right in front of my eyes, John Wayne had died, and I thought surely I would never seen him again. Though I laugh at myself now looking back, it was no laughing matter then. My hero was dead, and I bawled my eyes out. I hated that movie and never wanted to watch it again.

The next deaths would hit closer to home. This time it was my great-grandfather, then my great-grandmother. I remember the days I would spend going over to their house with my family. It was a very small house, the kind more prevalent in previous times. Both had developed alzheimers and by the end were in bad shape. More than their deaths, I remember the reactions of my mother and grandmother. This time, there would be no reappearances. This was real, and the grownups around me were grieving.

Not long after they passed, my grandmother’s brother died of lung cancer. This is the first time I can remember that word, cancer. My memory of the funeral mostly consists of my siblings and I in a room off to the side, mostly oblivious to what was going on. We knew it was bad, but we didn’t know the man all that well. I do, though, remember my grandmother's tears.

After we moved, our childhood dog would pass away. It was very old and we all knew it was coming. Everyone took it hard. Later on, in late elementary school, my family adopted a dog and he lived two good years with us before being hit by a car. He had escaped our back yard. He was my dad’s favorite, and even to this day my dad has that dog as his phone’s background. A year later, we adopted a nearly identical dog. In a cruel twist of fate, after just two years he suffered an identical end as the last.

My paternal grandfather died my freshman year of high school. He had overcome cancer in the past, but this would be his last struggle. He had brain cancer. After a time, things became quite bad and he was hospitalized. No one was sure how long he had. My dad went up to visit him (he didn’t live nearby) and in short order his condition became critical. In the span of just a day or two he went from being awake and lucid to dead. My siblings and I held him in high regard even though we only got to see him a few times a year at most, generally during holidays. When we learned of his passing, my younger sisters were affected the most. I was sad, but did not feel his loss as strongly as perhaps I should have. I don’t know why. I remember only a few aspects of his funeral, mostly when we sang Amazing Grace, a hymn I will forever associate with death.

The same cannot be said for my maternal grandfather. I remember that vividly. I was a sophomore, and it was Valentine’s Day. I came home from school like normal. Then my mom and dad brought us to the living room and had us sit down on the couch. We were told that that morning, he had suffered a heart attack and died instantly, at the gym of all places. He was a healthy man, so I was in shock. Only later did I find out that his family had a history of heart attacks among the men.

I’ve always been closer to my mom’s side because I grew up with them. I spent a lot of time with those grandparents. We drove down to my grandmother’s house that afternoon and I remember sitting in the living room watching my grandmother, aunt, and mother crying. I don’t remember saying a word. Being the eldest son, there was some innate sense that I had to be solid. I had to hold it together; I could not lose my composure. As we prepared for his funeral, I asked to give a eulogy. When the day of the funeral came around, I tried my hardest not to shed even one tear, and I largely succeeded. I mingled with family members and shared memories, even laughter. Only one moment caused me real distress, and that was seeing my grandmother break down as she looked at his body in the casket. In that moment I could feel the tears welling up, but I fought them back. Later on, when the funeral had started in earnest, I stood up and went to the podium to deliver my eulogy, to applause. I was 16.

The following week, after some fight with my dad, I went to bed and it all came out. I screamed into my pillow and cried tears that had been kept back since his death. This was the first time I really felt angry at God. I do not feel that way now, but I must admit that if I begin to really dwell on my grandfather and his passing, I am filled with sadness.

This morning, the dog that I got as a puppy one Christmas died. Tumors, characteristic of the breed. When I saw two missed calls from my mother before I’d woken up, I knew something had happened. I am thankful to have seen my dog the other weekend, for the last time, though I am grieved I am not the one who will bury her.

Death weighs on my mind and I am reminded of all I’ve just written. No matter how many times we experience death, and it doesn’t take long, it is ever-new. Whether it’s a pet or a relative, the passing of someone or something dear to us is a reminder that we too will pass, and who can say when, or how.

In another age, death was, I think, far better understood and appreciated. Our mortality was kept ever before us. Memento mori could be found everywhere. It was in the very air people breathed. Nowadays we do whatever we can to avoid even the scent and sight of death, to our detriment (though we can never really escape it). Health, which really ends up being sterility, is our catchphrase. How ironic that Christianity, with its promise of eternal life and the bodily resurrection, forces us to “remember that you have to die.” Today I take that to heart.

Remember your Creator in the days of your youth,
    before the evil days come
And the years approach of which you will say,
    “I have no pleasure in them”;
Before the sun is darkened
    and the light and the moon and the stars
    and the clouds return after the rain;
When the guardians of the house tremble,
    and the strong men are bent;
When the women who grind are idle because they are few,
    and those who look through the windows grow blind;
When the doors to the street are shut,
    and the sound of the mill is low;
When one rises at the call of a bird,
    and all the daughters of song are quiet;
When one is afraid of heights,
    and perils in the street;
When the almond tree blooms,
    and the locust grows sluggish
    and the caper berry is without effect,
Because mortals go to their lasting home,
    and mourners go about the streets;
Before the silver cord is snapped
    and the golden bowl is broken,
And the pitcher is shattered at the spring,
    and the pulley is broken at the well,
And the dust returns to the earth as it once was,
    and the life breath returns to God who gave it.
Vanity of vanities, says Qoheleth,
    all things are vanity!

Ecclesiastes 12:1-8