Death In A Dream
What would you do if you had six more months to live?
I frequently ponder the question, would I rather know the date my physcial body will expire, ahead of time, or would I rather be taken out in an unexpected flash - say like on a highway, cruising carelessly at 80mph, singing out loud to one of my favorite Dolly Parton songs, when a logging truck sleepily crosses the center line? If I could choose the exact nature of my death, I’d go out around ten o’clock in the morning, in the 98th year of my life, after I witnessed one last sunrise, drank one dry, Illy cappucino and wrote a final fairwell to my loved ones and the world. One hundred would be pretty fancy but also seems a bit cliché and greedy. And like all my fellow pet lovers know all too well, death rarely visits in the peace and quiet of home, at old age. Those of you who have been around me and my writing for awhile know I believe death shapes the way in which we choose to live. I write about it freely and without a morbid sense of doom. For me, death has defined my life since the suicide of my dad when I was only ten, and continued to shape my existance after the death of my first born daughter. I remind myself of my mortality for a few moments each morning and see death as a gift. Who in their right mind would want to live forever anyway? There are really only two ways in which people deal with death, 1) pretend it isn’t going to happen and avoid thinking about it, talking about it and planning for it or 2) embrace it, contemplate it in a healthy, spiritual manner and plan for it. Those who choose to avoid the reality of their temporary existance tend to waste a lot of life on shit that doesn’t matter and tend to leave the burden of their death on those they leave behind. When you think you have all the time in the world, you behave like it. For those, like me, who keep the fleeting nature of life tucked nicely into the back corner of our minds, we use death as a reason to live more fully. We embrace the terrifying reality of it, we remind ourselves of it and we plan appropriately for it. Death for us provides intentional urgency. I was blessed with prior notice when my daughter Kathryn was diagnosed with a chromosome abnormality not compatible with life, while still alive and well, inside of me and I made sure I didn’t waste any time. I picked out the perfect casket, planned her funeral songs and decided on things like what sort of flowers would be appropriate for a springtime, April funeral, for an infant. Is that really a question any mother should have to ask herself? Although the most difficult time of my life, those months of carrying her, knowing she would not live long, taught me a lesson about the inevitability of death that most people never receive. I wouldn’t trade that gift for anything in the world. But when it comes to my own death, I’m not so sure I want to know when it’s coming.
This whole topic came to mind this week when I woke up from a lucid dream. A dream in which I was diagnosed with a fatal kind of bone cancer that had originated in my brain. Some neoplasm-neuro-somethingy or other, I couldn’t pronouce but my husband knew well, as he delivered me the bad news. “Is it bad?” I asked him over the phone. “Yep.” “Like how bad?” I pried from the silent end of the conversation. “As bad as it gets.” “So will I be around to see Scarlett graduate from high school in another year and a half?” “That would be amazing but not likely,” he answsered as only someone who has loved you for thirty one years but understands the reality of a terminal diagnosis could answer. The dream seemed to go on for ages, with my bones actually aching in my sleep and culminated with me making Casey promise he would remarry someday, so Scarlett would have a mom. Her birth mother abandoned her the day she came into this world and it seemed so unfair for her to be asked to forsake another mother. When I awoke, the gravity of the situation felt as real as the Canadian geese flying overhead, outside my window. Lying still, it took me a few seconds to gather my mind and realize the ache in my back was not bone cancer, but a result of the endless hours I spent the day before sitting at my desk. But even after I arrived in the present moment, I was left with a sense that I have taken my health for granted. My immanent death, albeit just a dream about death, brought me to a heightened attention to my health. It was so damn real. The only dream I can recall ever being this vivid was one I had about twenty five years ago, when the Dallas Cowboys were winning Super Bowls with superstars Emmitt Smith, Michael Irving, Troy Ackman and Deion Sanders on the roster. I made out with Deion and felt so guilty about it when I woke up, I could barely look Casey in the eyes. I’m so sorry I cheated on you with an NFL player! I’m not even attracted to male athletes! I’m sure you’ve had dreams like this too, right?
My best guess at what promoted the dream about me dying a short, yet brutally painful death of bone cancer is a combination of things. This is how dreams work. They are our brain’s way of sorting out unsettled business, like untangling a web of knots in a ball of yarn your cat has strung about the livingroom. Bits and pieces of information, thoughts and emotions that get smushed together in ways they don’t always belong, like multiple colors of play-doh in the hands of a toddler. The colors don’t blend and the resulting animal looks more like a ball stuck onto the end of a hotdog than a replica of a the family labrador retriever. They have a sense of reality, confused with the imagination’s attempt at problem solving.
In the week before this dream, I had been doing a stoic meditation practice, where on one of the days the guide had asked, “what would you do if you had six more months to live?” I like this guy. I pondered the question for several days and came to the conclusion I wouldn’t do anything. I’d stay close to home, tend my chickens and my garden like I do every morning, spend time in my kitchen, cooking and soak up every last minute with my family. I’ve traveled to a lot of amazing places already, so why waste my last few months sitting on an airplane? There isn’t anything I’d buy either. I’ve experienced the fleeting rush of extragence plenty of times before and it’s just not that great. The only thing I would do is finish publishig my book so the world at large had the eternal sound of my words and record some videos and writings for my daughter and husband. Things for them to watch and read at all the major life events I would miss. The important things like when Scarlett marries, when she has a child of her own and when Casey gets old or just needs to hear my voice. Another contributing piece of the tragic dream puzzle is the dark night my soul has been in for the past few months. Don’t worry, under the cover of darkness is the only way we escape the things that keep us prisoner, so these times are actually to be savored. I’ve been shedding my skin like a lizard, hidden under a ceramic log in a terrarium, and allowing things that hold me back to die away. Like trees shedding their leaves, fall has a tendancy to do this to us too. But only if we pay attention to how connected we are to all things living. And the bone cancer trouble in the story most definitely came from the ache I have been battling in my low back and pelvis due to the tightness in my hips, because of all the sitting and writing I have been doing lately. Thankfully, I can let go of my initial concern that the dream was somehow prophetic. It is easily explained away, simply by exploring my mind for the things I’m trying to sort out. But what is worth holding onto from that dream is the reinvigorated attention to my mortality. The appreciation I have for the life I am living. With the help of God inside of me, I am creating a life that lacks absolutely nothing at all. I will remember to be grateful for this everyday.
What about you? What would you do if you had only six more months to live? Guess what? You might. Or maybe you have another fifty years - either way, it really doesn’t matter. You have today and today is all you need to create a life you won’t regret living.
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