by Eva Clark

Created on: April 21, 2009

Death

Death becomes no one, yet it happens to everyone. The living and the dead are continuously affected by death, in one way, or another, and the older we grow, the more involved with death, we become. The more involved we are, the more we realize the inevitability of death and the lack of power we have over it. When will it come? Which one of us is going to go, this time? How will it come to us? None of these questions can be answered by us, so, as we age, we tend to go along more with the flow of things. To me, this is the only way to look at death. We should not become sad or afraid of something that is as natural a part of our existence as breathing.

Those of us who have lived beyond the "mid-point" of our lives, can remember when the norm was attending PTA meetings and our kids' ballgames, having picnics with games included for all ages, or, of eating watermelon, as we await the hot dogs and burgers from the grill. The grill that was located in the backyard of one of our many friends' homes.

How can anyone forget the sound of children's voices tweetering and reaching volumes, of which, we adults could not even fathom? You can not forget the distinct sound of your child's voice, a shrill, unique only to your ears. Those long, lazy afternoons of spring, summer, fall, and even winter, have transcended into visiting family or friends, sometimes, both at a time, in the hospital. Or, of attending wakes, funerals, and burials. Seldom now, are there invitations to help celebrate a marriage or to help welcome a baby into this world.

As we age, we have learned to adapt to the increased frequency of visits to the hospital, and I'm talking family and close friends, and to the rapidity with which funerals come at us. We realize the futileness in planning for anything. Cruises and overseas' travel is now usually planned with a hope and a prayer, along with the realization that there are no givens. That the only certainty is death. Even with this increased awareness of the stalker death, we still never really become used to it. Death always manages to catch us by surprise and fill us with despair and dismay, even for those family or friends, who had been holding us hostage, with their long-term illnesses and to fill us with the accompanying shame we experience each time we have this very selfish thought. Death is so ephemeral but each of us carries the memory of it for a lifetime. I think it may be the impact of its sudden finality.

Rather than looking at death as an ending,

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