concerning death. If there was time, we’d interact with questions and observations afterward. I looked side-to-side, avoiding eye contact at first through the curtain of silence before Lisa (I’ll call her) said, “I’ll go first.”
Lisa’s experiences were somewhat in line with my own, death was a horrible visitor that stripped you naked and left you shaking on the phone at first touch, but later sunk in to provide an existential geography of learning beyond ordinary understanding. Death was not only transitory to the human body, but to a consciousness that chose to pay attention.
I seized the following space to tell my story. I was away at college when I was 20 and the pay phone outside my dorm room rang persistently as I pulled on my socks and tossled my hair. MIKE! Boomed a voice down the empty hall as someone grew impatient enough with the 7:50 a.m. ringing to answer. Huh, who would be stupid enough to try to reach a college student before noon? I hopped into my shoes and reached for the phone still swinging at the end of the cord as I arrived. I was told by a distant, shaky voice my father had collapsed that morning behind the wheel of his car from a massive heart attack. Chaos raged in the background before I was finally told to come home. I was shaking as I hung up the receiver, but wasn’t sure what I felt as I contemplated this new life reality. I didn’t cry or feel detached, but went into a deep self-reflection about the seeming triviality and brevity of life. It was who I was at that time, though many of my friends questioned what appeared to them, a measured response to tragedy. I was a sophomore in college reading Buddhist philosophy and Kierkegaard; my mind tended to gravitate through that filter while interpreting the world.
Twenty years later my step-father collapsed during a birthday celebration never regaining consciousness before dying four days later in a hospital bed. Waiting for someone to die is a whole different level of personal than a phone call. My family took shifts to sit with him, and I knew I was somehow seeing myself in his final breaths.
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eyes before reading the written script; treating the invite more as a puzzle than a serious gathering. Come share stories of death over tea and treats it beckoned, bluntly dangling that fear boldly in the face of the reader. I reached toward the single clear tack pressed deep into the cork planning on confiscating the poster for later musing, but decided not to deprive others the shock value of my initial viewing. I memorized the date then wrote it in my notebook in the car.
It was a few days later that I found myself watching a light snow as the sun faded into night and I pondered the merits of a death defying drive to the isolated meeting location. Death had always been somewhat of a fascination after having experienced the deaths of my father and step-father in sudden family catastrophes involving heart failure. Not only did this leave us ill prepared, but since I often ate what they ate, and shared genetics with dad, I was faced with the realization that my own death could come sooner than planned. If the session turned out to be sharing after life experiences or ghost stories, I was cool with that too. I just hoped to share something relevant with someone that might have a greater meaning. I grabbed my keys.
The meeting was behind a popular coffee shop in a large log cabin meeting hall just beyond the boundary of my city. The road was dark and icy, and the dim porch lights traced several parked cars in silhouette as I arrived. I was late, and I crossed the threshold to see a tight circle of ten individuals focused on a female moderator in a light wool sweater. I approached tentatively as I was at least twenty years younger than anyone in the circle. These were clearly people who had had intimate experiences with death and I wondered how my perceptions would be different with the noticeable age difference. I slowly unzipped my coat as their faces rose to look over the late intruder with a solemn disdain. The topic was written in their eyes as I scooched a chair into the circle after a curly, silver haired woman in turquoise slippers tossed her hip into her chair to create a space. The moderator gave me a quick welcome and went right into her own personal tales of death before explaining the format. We were all to share whatever personal tragedies or triumphs we had had in our lives concerning death. If there was time, we’d interact with questions and observations afterward. I looked side-to-side, avoiding eye contact at first through the curtain of silence before Lisa (I’ll call her) said, “I’ll go first.”