A Matter of Death and Life

Mourning is the price we pay for having the courage to love others.

It is very heartening to know that even when we get it wrong (i.e. being human) we can make it right with authenticity and kindness.

Many of the early explorers in my field—Sigmund Freud, Anna Freud, Melanie Klein, John Bowlby—concluded that early trauma, even dating back to preverbal eras, takes its toll, often an indelible toll, on the comfort, the ease, the self-esteem, of the adult, even into late stages of life.

My work is to live before I die.

What Matters to Me" 1. What matters to me is my family and close friends. In this way, I am like almost everyone else in the world. 2. What matters to me is my work, no longer as a professor, but as a writer reaching out to readers within and beyond the academic circle, 3. What matters to me is Nature, another form of beauty and truth. Throughout my life the natural world has been a source of enjoyment, comfort, and inspiration. 4. And now I remember...the fourth...It has to do with moral impulse, with the search for meaning and human connection, and with our relation to Nature, that we now lump together under the word "spirituality.

It is the grimmest os times. Marilyn's death is now visible on the horizon, growing ever closer and permeating every decision, large and small. She drinks Earl Grey breakfast tea, and when I see there are only two tea bags remaining, I go the grocery store to buy some more. But how many? No one else in the house drinks tea. There are twenty bags in each box. I fear she shan't be alive for more than a few more days, yet I purchase two boxes - forty tea bags - a magical plea to keep her with me a bit longer.

These are human being to human being: not so much therapist-client moments, and these moments have made a huge difference to me (and to my own clients). It is very heartening to know that even when we get it wrong (i.e., being human) we can make it right with authenticity and kindness.

There is something comforting about a stone marked, presumably for eternity, with the name of your loved one. I

For all the philosophical treatises and for all the assurances of the medical profession, there is no cure for the simple fact that we must leave each other.

Marilyn, I so clearly remember your oft-repeated comment, “The death of an 87-year-old woman who has no regrets about her life is no tragedy.” That concept—the more fully you live your life, the less tragic is your death—rings so very true for me.

What do you most fear about death?” I asked. She answered, “All the things I would not have done.” That feels extraordinarily important; it has been core to my therapy work. For many years, I have been convinced that there is a positive correlation between death anxiety and the sense of unlived life. In other words: the more unlived your life, the greater your death anxiety.

What terrifies most about death is not the loss of the future but the loss of the past. In fact, the act of forgetting is a form of death always present within life.

Three things in human life are important. The first is to be kind. The second is to be kind. And the third is to be kind.

If I see an outstanding TV show, I long to tell Marilyn about it, and over and again I have to remind myself that there is no Marilyn and that this TV show, this flake of life, is of value and interest even though Marilyn shall never share it.

Only occasionally, in dreams, does my anguish break through. But on the whole, I have come to accept the fact that I shall soon be dead. The sadness—the great sadness of saying goodbye to family and friends—does not seem to alter my ability to perform the simple acts of living day to day with reasonably good cheer. This is not a veneer: after nine months of toxic treatments and feeling miserable most of the time, I’m enjoying this reprieve, however short it may be.

That encounter so many years ago conveys what I will miss for the rest of my life: the sense of engagement, of being trusted, of sharing deep and dark moments with another. And, most of all, the opportunity to offer so much to another person. That’s been my way of life for so many years. I treasure it. I will miss it. Such a contrast with a passive life in which I am assisted by a caretaker—a life that I fear lies not too far ahead.

the greater your death anxiety.

Of the six of us, I alone still walk the earth. I tremble as I think of this. Why had I outlasted them? Sheer luck. I feel blessed to still breathe and think and smell and to hold hands with my wife. But I’m lonely. I miss them. My time is coming.

So, yes, Kundera nailed it: “the act of forgetting is a form of death always present within life.

Unlike a flashlight that fails to light, a TV remote that will not change channels, a cell phone navigator that will not guide, this tiny device operates with the highest possible stakes: should it fail, my life would end in a matter of minutes. I am stunned by the frailty of my mortality.