What If You Had But One Week Left To Live
Today was the sad culmination of a very tough week for the greater Newman family. Beneath a chilly blue Ohio sky my youngest brother, Elliot, was laid to rest. He had died this past Friday, in the local hospital, of kidney disease and a blood clot. He was only 43.
As would be expected in such a close and large family as that in which I was raised, there were many pained hearts. But surely none burned as sharply as that of our 77-year-old mother, Mary. Indeed, as her deep sobs stabbed at my own heart, I knew there mustn't be anything so wrenching to one's soul as the loss of one's child. True to her Irish heritage, she tried to be brave, tried not to show much weakness. But her diminutive figure needed the support of our arms more than once. The heaviness of a lifetime spent dealing with death--as a nurse, a wife, and a mother--has put a stoop into her shoulders, but she shall be fine. Her faith is unshakable, and her grit inspiring to all who know her. Indeed, I believe the greatest sadness the family shall ever know will be the day it is she who is laid to rest. She is the very foundation of the Newman clan, and it is almost too much to think that someday she will no longer be here to guide us....
...The frailty of our lives is a subject that I am all too familiar with. I myself nearly died, when two road bandits in Thailand tried to kill me with machetes during that section of my worldwalk. And before that there was the awful news on Christmas night 1984 that, unbeknownst to me, my father had been dead for over a month. I was crossing India at the time, and I had telephoned my parents from an international hotel in New Delhi, to wish them a merry Christmas. Normally that should have been a grand experience, for in 1984 telephones were a rarity in most of the places I had been walking though in India, and I hadn't talked to my parents for several weeks.
"Steven," my mother said softly, as soon as she heard my voice, "your father is no longer with us." He had had a heart attack just before Thanksgiving.
Naturally I wanted to come home and help her with her grief, but my mother would have none of that. Wisely she pointed out that my father was buried, and there was nothing much I could really do for the family at such a late point after the funeral. And then she added the point that my father had been so proud of what I was doing, and he would have been greatly disheartened to see me quit at the half-way point of the journey. Such a shame it would be, she said, if I should return to Ohio and then for some reason did not make it back to India to finish my trek. Even with all the good things I had written about, and even with all the miles and adventures that had become a part of my life, all that people would remember was that I had quit, she said. "Daddy," she said proudly, "would never have wanted you to give up on your dream. You must continue, if you hope to show people how special the world really is. Otherwise they will say: 'Look, he must have quit because he was scared, because the world is a bad place.'" People can be so unfair in that you spend years doing good, but the one time you make a serious mistake, and that is what many choose to remember you for.
All in all, I was hardly unfamiliar with death by the time I had reached New Delhi. In my youth I had seen several of the residents in my grandmother's nursing home die before my eyes. (Sometimes more than once, as my mother the nurse pounded on their chests and got their hearts beating again.) Then after graduation from Ohio University there were the homicides and accidents that came with being a newspaper reporter. And, finally, there were the victims of war and of crime that I'd witnessed on the worldwalk up to that Christmas night. Still, it just isn't the same when it's one of your own family.
On the ride home from the burial today, I asked my wife Darci what she would do if she knew she had but one week of life left. She didn't hesitate in her reply: "I would spend as much time with my family as I could," she said.
And me? I thought that I would go fishing. Yes, I would want to say my goodbyes to my mother and my siblings, but also I know I would want to soak in, one last time, every little bit of the scents and sights that make Life here on Worldwalker Hill such a wonderful "gift." Last October I think I ever so faintly brushed against Heaven when I was alone fishing on Eagle Creek with my dog Gabriel (see "My Four-legged Friend"). The air was so pefectly warm...the light so pure...the sky so blue and at peace...the creek's stilled waters so richly coated in fallen leaves of every color, and the silence...the silence... I swear even Gabriel smiled.
So what would you, the reader, do in that last week? I'd love to have you comment. For that matter, what do you think "Heaven" will be like? After death will I ever again know the sweet smell of a fertile autumn afternoon? Or might Heaven be what Mark Twain once jokingly feared: a massive blissful choir of eternally smiling faces belting out hallelujahs forever, and forever, and forever, and...
Steven Newman
Photo: My brother Elliot several years ago when he was helping construct the addition to what is now the Worldwalker Hill home.
Comments
Dear Steve, Darci & Mary, Please accept my deepest sympathy on your sad loss.
I think I would just invite all my family to come and farewell me one last time so we could be all together. Sometimes we are not given that luxury of knowing, so it is best we live as though it is our last meeting, put all ill feelings behind us and always be friends. God bless you all.
Peg Matthews
Posted by: Peg Matthews | March 10, 2005 4:25 AM
Steve,
I try to live my life now like there's no next week. There is a guy, he discovers he has six months to live and he then goes out and lives the best six months of his life.
Why does it have to be six months? Why not six years or even 60? We're dying from birth so we're dying as we speak.
You are now closer to death at this second. After you finish this sentence you are closer still.
I'm a buddhist and ever since I have been one I have been encouraged to meditate on this inevitability, something I try to do at least once a day. Many people think that to be an exercise in morbidity, but "morbidity" just isn't proper perspective because death comes to us all. I have found it to be a life affirming ritual, a reminder that indeed life is not a never ending treasure.
There is a pattern and a reason for these things, I believe that. In 1997 a web site I had created called TravelHacker got a wonderful mention in the Wall Street Journal. I bought several copies, bound one up along with a business card and a note to my father. By this time my father had stopped doing routine things like going out to get his mail having the next next door boy to do it for him. On the day the newspaper arrived from me was also the day that the young boy next door found my father dead. Dad woke up at 5 am, sat on the edge of the bed and suffered a "major, acute coronary event" as the coroner would later say. By the time his body hit the bed his spirit was already shifting into fifth gear.
Dad always joked that Heaven would never take him and he was too ornery for Hell. Apparently one of those places changed their entrance policy. I like to think it's Heaven, but I don't think much about creator Gods.
If one is in a burning house (and it's burning now as we speak) it doesn't seem to make a whole lot of sense to think about who the architect happens to be and his schooling and who his sister is and what he eats and so on....
All we know about life is that it ends and that's about it. Best to be as good to each other as we can while we're here. Since we don't know what happens after it's probably a good idea to cover our bets. That's not a religious ideal, it just seems to be common sense.
As far as my belief as to the patterns behind these things, I think it was necessary for my mail to be sent when it was so my father could have been found when he was.
I made an acquaintance in Noel Blanc a few years ago. His father was Mel Blanc, the man of a million voices, but most people know him best as the voice of Bugs Bunny.
Mel suffered a horrific car wreck in 1966 and was in a deep coma for quite some time. After being unresponsive all that time his agent had a great idea, he started talking to Mel as if Mel were Bugs Bunny. Mel then began to speak in Bugs' voice and continued to do so until coming out of his coma. All that time he gave life to Bugs and Bugs gave it back to him.
Charles Schultz writes his final Peanuts strip and passes away that same day. It's as if Mr. Schultz just said "That's it, my job here is done".
I believe that too. I don't think anyone goes without giving their permission ultimately, but it does hurt tremendously that we are left trying to understand why. That's what happens when we apply our limited human minds to something that transcends it.
We are alive now and we should ride the crashing waves and enjoy the harrowing adventure without worry. The current knows where it's going.
My best to you and your family Steven for you are my family as well.
Julian
Posted by: Julian Cook | March 14, 2005 10:26 PM