The Mundanity of Dying: Part Two
On Monday, we launched a new podcast where we tackle epic fantasy series. We’re starting with Joe Abercrombie’s First Law! So hop along and join us as we discuss a series that really opened the floodgates to the grimdark genre.
I owe people the next chapter in the Book of the New Sun slow read but I’m going to be missing this week. The days have spun away from me and I cannot focus on these chapters the way they require.
My apologies.
Well, then I’ll die.
It’s interesting to run into such indifference when the stakes seem to be quite high.
My father has carried on in great pain for no real reason this week. The pain became so bad Wednesday that he decided he would see a doctor on Thursday but then decided he was in too much pain to see the doctor so he’s just sitting at home, in pain, unmedicated, an infection terrorizing his body and disabling him.
There are better ways to die.
There are certainly better ways to live.
But this is the life he’s choosing, the death he seems to be choosing.
It’s possible he’ll get better without antibiotics. The doctor wasn’t sure if he had cellulitis because she was only able to look at his hand from a few feet away because he refused to let her examine him in any way. Couldn’t even take his blood pressure. So there is a chance that he doesn’t have an infection.
But it all seems so bizarre.
And we are all so powerless to do anything about it.
And what of your wife?
What of your grandchildren?
I do not ask you to live but I do ask that you choose a different way to die. One less painful and frustrating, one that is perhaps gentler to my mother, your wife, the one who gave you so much in this life.
But at a certain point this all becomes so banal.
And I think this is both the terror and truth of dying.
One day you will die. Perhaps on a Tuesday. And the next day will still be Wednesday. The world will carry on. Even we will carry on without you if only because we must.
That is life. A long process of carrying on, of stepping over problems and annoyances, of embracing grief and joy, of consuming experience.
And then one day it ends.
And the rest are left with what pieces we leave behind.
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