Out of a living silence

Everybody has to die, but I always believed an exception would be made in my case. Now what?—William Saroyan (31 August 1908 – 18 May 1981) in a statement to the Associated Press, five days before his death.

My uncle Alden Hayes, when he was about the age I am now, once commented to me that every time he gets the news that one of his friends or relatives has died, his life feels a little bit pinched back. Whether it’s a smile or a chuckle that used to brighten one’s day, or a source of insight or advice that used to provide guideposts, or a sympathetic ear that used to listen without judgment, its lingering absence diminishes the quality of the lives of those who survive the deceased. Unlike Saroyan’s tongue-in-cheek proclamation, I have never believed, or even hoped, that an exception to mortality would be made in my case, but many times I have been saddened that an exception was not made in the case of a loved one. My preference would be that all my friends and relatives procrastinate about dying at least until I am no longer here to mourn their demise.

As is usually the case, and tragic when it is not, I outlived my parents. As it happened, both of my parents outlived their siblings, so by the time they had both passed away, I had no more elders in the family whose wisdom and memories of their elders I could rely on. As years have gone by, the last of the close friends of my parents have all died. Not a day goes by that I do not have a question I would like to ask one or more of the people who were adults when I was a child. It vexes me these questions will never be answered. Not even google can help me out. Not having any living elders to talk to and look up to has taken a big pinch out of my life.

This past year I have learned of the deaths of several friends whom I knew when we were all young and either confident or anxious about the lives we had ahead of us. I kept in touch with a couple of these friends from the time I met them until they left me behind. We shared information, opinions, laughter, and the whole gamut of feelings that attend early adulthood, middle age, and senescence. Losing them has also pinched back a big piece.

When no one else is around, I find myself saying things out loud to my parents, and my deceased friends and cousins. It’s not that I think they can hear me—I don’t have that kind of belief about what happens after death—but it’s that I occasionally have something to say and can find no one else to say it to. For as long as I can remember I have had thoughts and feelings that I felt comfortable sharing only with a specific audience, and when that audience has left the arena, the only option left is to deliver an unheard soliloquy. Or write a blog post.

It is not only the deaths of human beings that pinch back one’s life. During the past few years my wife and I have experienced the end of life of a dog who was with us for seventeen years, and two cats who were with us only a few years less than that. Losing a family pet is a heartbreak unlike any other, for their love is, or at least seems to us to be, unconditional. I have never suspected, for example, that my dog would withhold her affection if for some reason I neglected to give her a treat. Therefore, I rarely neglect to give her a treat, and if I don’t predecease her, I will sorely miss that little ritual and all the other happy moments we have had together.

For decades I have practiced what the religious traditions of India call mindfulness of death (maraṇānusmṛti). This practice, as I have learned it, focuses primarily on coming to terms with the inevitability of one’s own death, and with the uncertainty of when and how that event will take place. What the practice does not entail, at least as I have done it, is coming to terms with the inevitability of staying alive longer than some of the people and animals that I have held most dear.