LEST WE FORGET

REMEMBRANCE DAY AT VICTORIA PARK CENOTAPH

This blog entry is dedicated to my friend, Kevin, and his far-better-than-half, Sherry.  Kevin and Sherry, this past year, have lost two young adult sons. Somehow it seems fitting that I started writing this entry upon my return from the Remembrance Day ceremony at the Victoria Park Cenotaph in Regina, Canada.

To begin, dying is never a positive topic.  We collectively decide to think about death only when the time comes.  One such popular time, it seems, is every year on Remembrance Day, even though everyone knows that DEATH is always on stand-by.

Not-so-surprisingly, most of us do not want to delay even thinking about death for as long as we can.  (I mean, really, I’m far too busy in my vitality to be contemplating my own departure right now!)

And not-so-surprisingly again, we all are aware that there does come a time when we must emotionally come to grips with death.  And at such time it is necessary to clear our negative thoughts about death, in an attempt to cultivate some positive and practical reckonings in order to deal with death.

One example of such a positive citation is an edited poem I recollect from high school:

To An Athlete Dying Young

By A.E. Housman

The time you won your town the race

We chaired you through the market-place;

Man and boy stood cheering by,

And home we brought you shoulder-high.

Smart lad, to slip betimes away

From fields where glory does not stay,

And early though the laurel grows

It withers quicker than the rose.

Now you will not swell the rout

Of lads that wore their honours out,

Runners whom renown outran

And the name died before the man.

A most tragic fate is the death of young person in the prime of life. In To An Athlete Dying Young, British classical scholar and poet, A. E. Housman, suggests that death, especially for youth, is a victory over the impending disappointments, and all the tragedies and heartbreak that accompany everyone’s life.  The young athlete in this poem, because he has passed at his prime, never has to experience any more life struggles.

Normally death is never regarded as something joyous or enviable but this poem shows that death has the advantage to make the athlete’s glory permanent.  And so Housman spins that dying young does have at least this one benefit.

Factoid:  We, as living beings, are only durable and doable for up to about 100 years.  Along our way to the greying years we become frail; our self-concept lowers, and therefore so lowers our self-esteem.  In our senior years some of us become bitter because we are so limited both psychologically and physically.  It is certainly not unusual to grow old feeling sorry for ourselves.

Just imagine if there were no such thing as death.  You can imagine then that there would be nothing in life that is urgent. Think of never dying.  Our immortality would render life to be meaningless.  We’d have no need to learn or do anything.  We’d have no need to eat, work, or exercise.  We’d have forever to do anything or to do nothing.  Whether we existed as a gourmand or a guttersnipe, a royal or a rake; or whether our lives were magnificent or mundane … we’d have no need to be alive!

• “To live is to suffer.” This phrase is the skinny of Zen.  As long as we are breathing we have angst.  There is always something to overcome, something over which to suffer. 

• “Why should I fear death?  If I am, death is not.  If death is, I am not.  Why should I fear that which cannot exist when I do?”  The ancient Greek philosopher, Epicurus, uses simple logic to make his point.  One cannot be alive and dead at the same time, and so our typical fear of being dead is totally irrational.  

• “Our dead are never dead to us, until we have forgotten them.”  Victorian novelist and poet, Mary Anne Evans (alias George Eliot), suggests that our notions about death are based upon our remembrance.

Sherry and Kevin, I hope you find solace in knowing that your sons will always be with you.

LEST WE FORGET.

LOST BUT NOT FORGOTTEN ... JORDAN AND JERAMY OYSTRICK