Dying

 

 When I typed the title above, I mistyped it: "Daying."

Which is actually true, and what I want to say.

It will be clear to those who follow me carefully (?) that I have a great interest in end-of-life issues. I have read much on this in the past few years, and it's clear to me that our society is mired in worship of youth and refusal to accept the inevitability of death. (This is not headline news.)

Talking with my sister yesterday, we agreed that neither of us is afraid to DIE, that is, cross over and be dead. What we are concerned about is being old and sick and helpless, and  without nurture. That we will not have the loving care from family that we have given and want to give to our own loved ones.

And the key, to me, is that every day I live, I also die, a little tiny bit.

I'm fifty. Suddenly, like never before, small injuries don't heal quite right. My skin is doing things it never did before (or refusing to do what it did before...) My hearing is affected. Losing weight is harder.

II think that every day I need to consider my current dying status, and what I want to do in tandem with it. It all sounds quite Buddhist.

It's commonly understood that people get smarter about these things as they get older, and that's where I am now, I suppose. Where I start telling young people, "just wait..." and they think, "yeah right" and do not believe it because they will have to be shown.

 (St. George Island, FL)