In general, I don’t feel very frightened by the prospect of my death. But I must worry a good deal about my loved ones dying, since I routinely practice these instinctive “death checks”:
- My phone’s voicemail is always full because I don’t delete old messages. One reason I don’t delete old messages is that I want to have a record of my loved ones’ voices, in case they should leave the earth and I should otherwise never hear their voices again.
- When I walk past a sleeping family member, I pause for a few moments in front of the couch or bed to check that the sleeper’s chest rises and falls—just to reassure myself that death has not come and whisked him away in sleep.
- I hate being on bad terms with anybody for very long. My mind quickly summons hypothetical thoughts of disaster and wonders what would happen if our final exchange were a foul one. This is a blessing in its way, since it makes me quick to ask forgiveness and make amends.
- Similarly to (3), when I find my relationship with a loved one growing stale or flagging, I chase away the lukewarmness by saying: “Who knows how long we have together? How awful I’d feel if I didn’t try to love enough and then one day never had the chance to try anymore.”
As for myself: I’m less afraid of dying and more afraid of living for a very long time in illness or pain. It takes courage (from the Latin cor, “heart”) to live.
My family will probably opine that these are morbid thoughts. But I don’t consider myself a morbid human being—…just a slightly frightened one.
I used to think that way a lot in my younger days. There’s certainly nothing wrong with being slightly fearful in this way. It must indicate a healthy degree of emotional attachment to loved ones. And I don’t think anyone should become immune to the fear of loss of loved ones.
When I moved away from my family, a lot of these thoughts disappeared. Naturally, physical distance can create emotional distance to the point that prospects like the death of family don’t seem as severe as they once did. I don’t know if you experienced that in living away from loved ones. It’s a more emotionally stable lifestyle, to be sure. I have to wonder, though, if there’s a point at which having less sensitivity to such topics is spiritually bad. Personally, finding that perfect amount of attachment has always been a challenge for me.
Thanks for your insights, Turner.
The question of attachment and detachment can be such a tricky one. I haven’t quite figured out the balance either. I know detachment is a virtue, but sometimes it’s hard to separate it from the more common and un-virtuous sense of the word, with all its suggestions of cold indifference. “How can you be warm and detached?” is the question that I try to figure out in lived experience. You’re right: there is something a bit hollow in becoming immune to the fear of losing loved ones. I know that I myself feel touched when someone (whether a friend or a family member) worries about me and my well-being. I know we’re not supposed to worry (“Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink…”), but there’s something in other people’s concern that makes you feel loved.
Admittedly, I think my staying up until morning is more than an old habit. During the night, I perform my own “death checks”: I slip out my bedroom door and listen to my family snoring. The past five years have been a most stressful case of researching, writing, dumping my work, researching, writing, dumping my work, researching, writing, dumping my work, researching, writing, dumping my work. I can’t even get a good cry and a hug, because it’s impossible to compress the past five years in between sobs.
I share your attitude on making amends. I’ve gotten angry with people before, but I’ve never held a grudge. When I think of grudges, I think of Amy from Little Women falling in the ice. Amy should have been perfused with cryoprotectants first 🙂