Words to Ponder Over: We're Dying All The Time

Not so much a "Words of Comfort" post, as much as a "Words to Ponder Over/Think About".  I was listening to Brian D. Smith's podcast Grief 2 Growth, while he was interviewing Clare Goldsberry.  Clare is the author of the book "The Illusion of Life and Death: Mind, Consciousness, and Eternal Being", and is a student of Buddhism.  At one point in the interview, she talks about the impermanence of all things, a theme I personally have been hearing more about lately:

"So we don’t really like the unknown, and we don’t like change. And I think one of the things about the Buddhist tradition....It’s a philosophy of change, and how to adapt to change, because everything will always change. And whether we know it or not, whether we like it or not, even our bodies are constantly changing. Day by day,  our cells die....we experience little mini deaths every day as our cells die. We get....new hair, we get new skin, we get new fingernails, things are always changing. We’re just not that aware of it. And I think this lack of awareness, about change and about impermanence really keeps us from looking at at death and what it is, and how we can have a good death and what it means. People think death is the end."

You can hear and/or read the whole interview here.

Brian's interview with Clare reminds me of an old science article I read years ago about how the human body replaces its cells every 7 years.  Actually, according to livescience.com, the truth is more complicated than that -- skin cells and cells in our digestive tract replace themselves in a matter of months, while certain cells in our brain are with us from birth until death.  But it does raise a fascinating perspective -- that, for the most part, the earthly bodies we inhabit now are not really the same earthly bodies we inhabited 10 years ago!  As Clare points out, everything in our world is in a constant state of flux, a constant state of change, and that leaving our physical earthly bodies behind at the time of "death"  is really about us going through another change as we go onto something new.

Philosophy of Dying: Confucius and Zhuang Zhou

Alexus McLeod is an Associate Professor of Philosophy and Asian Studies at the University of Connecticut.  In 2017 he penned an article: "What Chinese Philosophers Can Teach Us About Dealing With Our Own Grief".  He references writings from Zhuang Zhou, the Daoist philosopher who lived during the 4th Century B.C.E.  One particular insightful incident occurred when a friend of his, Hui Shi, finds him joyfully beating on a drum following the death of his wife, and reprimands Zhuang Zhou for his behavior.  Zhuang's response?

"Zhuang Zhou replies that when his wife first died, he was as upset as anyone would be following such a loss. But then he reflected on the circumstances of her origins – how she came to be through changes in the elements that make up the cosmos. He was able to shift his vision from seeing things from the narrowly human perspective to seeing them from the larger perspective of the world itself. He realized that her death was just another of the changes of the myriad things constantly taking place in the world. Just as the seasons progress, human life generates and decays.  In reflecting on life in this way, Zhuang Zhou’s grief disappeared." 

Of course, grief doesn't go away so easily for so many of us, but Zhuang Zhou's perspective might be helpful to meditate on.  Dr. McLeod also mentions how the Chinese philosopher Confucius  (c. 551 B.C.E. - c. 479 B.C.E.) suggested a three-year mourning period after the death of one's parent -- quite extraordinary by modern standards.  But for Confucius, anything less would not be appropriate.  According to McLeod, there is also a communal and ancestral component to our grief that cannot be ignored:

"There is more to the Confucian response to death than grief. Our encounter with others inevitably changes us. Those closest to us, according to the early Confucians, particularly family members, play the greatest role in determining who we are. In that sense, we are representatives of particular communities than detached and autonomous individuals.

After all, many of our physical features and personalities originate from our ancestors. In addition, we learn many of our attitudes, preferences and characteristic ways of acting from our families, friends and neighbors – the creators of our culture. So, when we consider the question of what we are as individuals, the answer necessarily encompasses members of our closest community."

Words of Comfort: the Apostle Paul

I recently re-discovered these words from St. Paul the Apostle (circa 5 - circa 65 AD/CE), in his letter to the church in Corinth (located in modern-day Greece), written sometime around 55 AD/CE.  The passage is from 2nd Corinthians, chapter 5, verses 1 through 10. It is taken from the New Living Translation of the Holy Bible.  I have found that the Apostle Paul has the rare gift of getting us to look beyond our present difficult circumstances and have us take the longer view:

"For we know that when this earthly tent we live in is taken down (that is, when we die and leave this earthly body), we will have a house in heaven, an eternal body made for us by God himself and not by human hands. ² We grow weary in our present bodies, and we long to put on our heavenly bodies like new clothing. ³ For we will put on heavenly bodies; we will not be spirits without bodies.^{[a] 4} While we live in these earthly bodies, we groan and sigh, but it’s not that we want to die and get rid of these bodies that clothe us. Rather, we want to put on our new bodies so that these dying bodies will be swallowed up by life. ⁵ God himself has prepared us for this, and as a guarantee he has given us his Holy Spirit.

⁶ So we are always confident, even though we know that as long as we live in these bodies we are not at home with the Lord. ⁷ For we live by believing and not by seeing. ⁸ Yes, we are fully confident, and we would rather be away from these earthly bodies, for then we will be at home with the Lord. ⁹ So whether we are here in this body or away from this body, our goal is to please him. ¹⁰ For we must all stand before Christ to be judged. We will each receive whatever we deserve for the good or evil we have done in this earthly body."

Philosophy of Dying: Seneca - Part II

There was another quote from Mustapha Itani's article on Seneca that I think is worth mentioning, and that has to do with the memories we have of loved ones who have died, especially if they've passed away recently.  Again, Seneca addresses his friend Marcia, who lost her son at a young age:

"Then, Seneca states that it is an awful choice not to consider the entirety of [Marcia's] son’s life, and focus only on the tragic ending: 'you pay no attention to the pleasure you have had in your son’s society and your joyful meetings with him, the sweet caresses of his babyhood, the progress of his education: you fix all your attention upon that last scene of all.'”

After reading this, I realize that many of us who are grieving, including myself, might be better off heeding Seneca's advice.  When we lost someone we loved dearly, we tend to focus on our final moments with them, especially if those memories were extremely stressful and/or sorrowful.  As a consequence, we tend to bury or forget the memories of all the good times we had with them, which in all likelihood greatly outnumber the sad or negative memories.  As day-to-day life slowly becomes more manageable for me, I'm putting more effort in to remember the numerous good times I had with my mother and Carter and Milton.

Philosophy of Dying: Seneca

Seneca (circa 4 BCE - 65 CE) was one of the great Roman philosophers, who along with Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius, was instrumental in the promotion of Stoicism.  Over at dailystoic.com, Mustapha Itani has a great in-depth piece in how Seneca attempted to comfort his friend Marcia, who lost her son Metilius to death.  Lots of great content here, and this one stood out for me particularly:

"In a clear statement of Stoic determinism, Seneca gives an analogy to express the true nature of life, in which he states that life is just like an inn and that all of us will soon leave to make space for another guest. He states that our time here is short and all men and their works have a brief time here, and take no part of infinite time. People always say that someone “died early” and “before their time”, but in actuality, Seneca argues, every man has a time in this life that has been assigned to him, and that no one dies before his time. We always associate death with old men and old age, but death is always floating around everyone, even the youngest of children.

Seneca finishes with an essential reminder, that we should evaluate life not by length and years, but by virtue. One should not measure life by the number of years lived, rather by what has been accomplished and how it was lived..."

Videos That Have Helped: When You Miss Someone

YouTuber Einzelgänger has a great channel devoted to philosophy, mostly devoted to Taoism, Buddhism, and Stoicism.  For those of you who struggle with grief, he has a very good video, "When You Miss Someone."  What I love about this video is that it can apply to people in a variety of situations, including those of us who had close friends move away, or are going through a break-up, as well as those of us who have lost loved ones to death.  Two quotes from the video that really struck me: "The reality is that everything comes and goes, and so do people.  The thing is that impermanence is what makes life possible, and, also, appealing."  And: "When we spend large amounts of time and energy on missing someone, we hand over the power over our mood to past memories....If we can't let go and long for something that isn't there, our present will appear gray and lifeless, often full of despair."  Definitely worth a full watch:

Videos That Have Helped: Pet Loss

One of my favorite YouTube channels as of late has been Dr. Ali Mattu's The Psych Show.  Dr. Mattu has a really good video from 2019: "Losing a dog is like losing a family member".  Very helpful and comforting if you are struggling with the loss of a beloved pet.

Personal Musings: Reflecting on Humor From Comedian Steven Wright

One of my all-time favorite comedians is Steven Wright.  I love a lot of his jokes, but one of my favorites is this one: "I filled out an application that said, "In Case Of Emergency Notify". I wrote "Doctor"... What's my mother going to do?"  

In recent months, I've realized that there can be a lot of underlying wisdom in humor.  For those of us who may have lost someone we were highly dependent on, especially if it's a spouse/partner or parent, we can feel like nobody else can help us if we find ourselves in a difficult situation -- that our loved one was the one person who could help us out.  Yet Steven Wright's joke reminds me that sometimes, other people might be in a better situation to help us out if we're in a crisis of one sort or another.  This isn't to say that our transitioned loved ones weren't highly capable people -- it's just that we can take solace and comfort in the fact that there are other people who can help us out and lift us up when we are not doing well and at a low point in our lives.   Even something as simple as someone cracking a good joke can make the dark days a little brighter.

Articles Worth Reading: Regrets of the Dying

Back in 2012, Bronnie Ware, an Australian hospice nurse, wrote the book "Top Five Regrets of the Dying: A Life Transformed by the Dearly Departing."  According to Ware, the top five regrets these dying patients had were:

1. "I wish I'd had the courage to live a life true to myself, not the life others expected of me."
2. "I wish I hadn't worked so hard."
3. "I wish I’d had the courage to express my feelings."
4. "I wish I had stayed in touch with my friends."
5. "I wish that I had let myself be happier."
   

Mike Pegg, who writes over at The Positive Encourager, has this article which goes into a little more detail about Ware's book, along with some YouTube links of interviews of Ware herself.  

What's fascinating to me is that Ware is not the only person with these insights.  Julie McFadden, another hospice nurse, works in the state of California here in the United States, and has reported similar findings, according to this article from the Independent UK.  For me, this gives me pause and makes me think about how I need to live my life more mindfully and intentionally.

Using Technology to Contact the Deceased: Thomas Edison

Communication with the dead is a subject that immediately generates controversy.  Adherents of many of the world's major religions suggest that attempting to contact the deceased falls under the realm of "not possible" at best to "strictly prohibited" at worst.  And yet, there are many who have been curious to know whether it would be possible.  Many who claim to have made contact are spiritual mediums utilizing the method known as a seance.  Many of these people were later exposed as frauds and charlatans, although  others might not be so easy to debunk.

Still, there are others in the scientific world who have wondered if it is possible to contact our deceased loved ones using other means -- namely, through technology that many of us could eventually utilize on our own.  One such person who was interesting in making contact with the spirit world was none other than Thomas Alva Edison (1847-1931).  Best known for his work and inventions concerning electric power, motion pictures, and sound recordings, Edison also apparently was intrigued with inventing a device that could communicate with the dead, as he told an interviewer of American Magazine in 1920.

A young Thomas Edison with one of his inventions, the tinfoil phonograph, sometime around 1877.

 

At first glance, Edison would seem an incredibly unlikely candidate to explore such a venture.  But, as this article from Reliable Planet points out, radio and motion pictures allowed people to hear the voices and see moving images of people who were no longer living.  Direct communication with the deceased, in Edison's mind, likely would seem the next logical step.  While there were many who dismissed Edison's idea as a joke or even a scam, Philippe Baudouin, a French radio host and philosopher, discovered a copy of Edison's diary in a thrift store in 2015.  This edition, unlike the others, contains an additional chapter laying out Edison's ideas and theories on how communication with the spirit world could be accomplished.  This article at Phys.org gives some more background, but alas, no one has been able to find Edison's detailed plans or schematics, if in fact he ever did get that far. 

Edison died from complications of diabetes in 1931.  Interestingly enough, he appears to have had a deathbed vision.  His last words, apparently spoken to his wife as he drifted in and out of consciousness, were: "It's very beautiful over there."

 

Dying & Grief in T.V. & Cinema: M*A*S*H

August Goforth, who I quoted extensively in a previous post here, was kind enough to share a link that some of you might find helpful if you're dealing with grief.  The subject in question is from the iconic television show M*A*S*H, namely episode 11 from season 10, "Follies of the Living, Concerns of the Dead", which originally aired on January 4, 1982.

 

This particular episode was considered somewhat controversial for the time, as it follows the spirit of a dead soldier, Private Jimmy Weston (played by actor Kario Salem) who doesn't realize that he's died.  Weston drifts around the 4077 Base, listening to the various conversations among the regulars, unable to get their attention.  The only person who can see and hear him is Klinger (played by Jamie Farr), who is suffering from a delirious fever.  Eventually, Weston realizes that he is dead, and ponders the meaning of his life. 

You can read a detailed summary of the episode here at the M*A*S*H fandom site, although I definitely think it's worth spending the approximate US $2.00 on one of the streaming services to watch the episode in its entirety.  There were a couple times during the episode where I myself got a little teary-eyed, and it made me realize how so many of the things we get worked up about in our earthly lives seems so trivial and superficial.  Highly recommended if you are experiencing grief.

 

Personal Musings: Good Days and Bad Days

A lot of people over the last few months have asked me how I'm doing, especially in light of all the family loss I recently endured.  My response to their question?  Over and over again, I tell them that I don't really have "good days" and "bad days" anymore.  It's been hard for me to have good days in light of what's happened to me over much of the last year.  At the same time, I really don't have "bad days" either, because how can anything top losing your beloved family members?  Instead, I explain that instead of good days and bad days, I have "days that are manageable", and "days when I really struggle".

Several months ago, I would say that most of my days were the struggling ones, with only a few days here and there that felt manageable.  Nowadays, I'm having a slightly higher percentage of days that are manageable.  I can't remember where I first read it, but it's becoming clearer to me now: we don't ever fully recover from our grief -- we just get better at learning to live with it.

Words of Comfort: August Goforth

August Goforth is a licensed psychotherapist and author of several books that deal with grief and the afterlife.  They have been among my short list of "go-to" books when I have been feeling sad and depressed during my grieving.  You can learn about these books in more detail at https://therisenbooks.com/.  August also has a website/blog where he posts regularly, which I have also found to be a very helpful resource: http://augustgoforth.blogspot.com/.

Depicting Grief in Art: Vincent Van Gogh

Vincent Van Gogh (1853-1890) was only in our world for 37 years, and yet the prolific Dutch artist created over 2000 works of art.  Interestingly enough, most of his 800+ oil paintings were created during the last two years of his life.  One of them, "Sorrowing Old Man (At Eternity's Gate)", was painted in May of 1890:

 

Journalist and teacher Jozef P. Astley has a great article on the background and inspiration for this Van Gogh painting, and cites art historian Kathleen P. Erickson's analysis of this work:

“Bent over with his fists clenched against a face hidden in utter frustration, the subject appears engulfed in grief. Certainly, the work would convey an image of total despair had it not been for the English title van Gogh gave it, At Eternity’s Gate. It demonstrates that even in his deepest moments of sorrow and pain, van Gogh clung to a faith in God and eternity, which he tried to express in his work.”

Van Gogh would commit suicide a little over two months later.

 

Personal Musings: When Our Loved Ones Suffer

A few days ago I was ruminating on the loss of my mother and our pets.  It occurred to me that there was something almost inconsistent in the way I was processing my losses.  When my mom and Carter and Milton were sick and not doing well, it usually did not stop me from getting a decent night's sleep.  Now that they have all transitioned away from earthly life, getting rest is sometimes more difficult.  Why is that?  The easy answer is that I'm still grieving their loss of companionship, even though they have all more than likely been freed from all pain and suffering.  Shouldn't I be celebrating, then?  And shouldn't I have been MORE concerned and worried about their well-being when they were still around and in the pain and discomfort they were in?  I almost feel like I'm a hypocrite, maybe even a bit inhuman.  I'm beginning to realize that grief exposes a lot about who we are as individuals, and sometimes those traits are things that I never would have suspected before.

Poetry in Grief: Henry van Dyke

One of my late mother's favorite poems has also become a favorite of mine.  Henry van Dyke Jr. (1852-1933) was an American author, poet, and minister in the Presbyterian Church.  For many years, he served on the faculty of Princeton University as a professor of English literature.  He also officiated at the funeral of Mark Twain in 1910.  He wrote many poems, and there is some question as to whether he is the true author of "I Am Standing Upon the Seashore," although some literary scholars believe him to be it.  Whoever DID write it has, in my humble opinion, composed a beautiful and hopeful ode to what awaits our deceased loves ones, and ultimately us as well.

"I Am Standing Upon The Seashore" by Henry van Dyke

I am standing upon the seashore.
A ship at my side spreads her white
sails to the morning breeze and starts for the blue ocean.

She is an object of beauty and strength.
I stand and watch her until at length
she hangs like a speck of white cloud
just where the sea and sky come
to mingle with each other. 

Then, someone at my side says;
"There, she is gone!" 

"Gone where?"
Gone from my sight. That is all.
She is just as large in mast and hull
and spar as she was when she left my side
and she is just as able to bear her
load of living freight to her destined port.
Her diminished size is in me, not in her. 

And just at the moment when someone
at my side says, "There, she is gone!"
There are other eyes watching her coming,
and other voices ready to take up the glad shout;
"Here she comes!"
And that is dying.

Words of Comfort: Paramahansa Yogananda

Paramahansa Yogananda (1893-1952) was an Indian Hindu monk, yogi, and guru.  He immigrated to the United States in 1920.  He is widely credited with increasing  the popularity of the yoga and meditation movements here in the U.S.  Yogananda combined many aspects of Western and Eastern belief into his theology; his Hindu background also incorporated much thought and discussion about Jesus and Christianity.  Yogananda also spent a fair amount in his speeches talking about death and dying.

Some of the most reassuring words I came across after the death of my mother came from a Yogananda article over at the Yogoda Satsanga Society of India website: "Life After Death: What Happens After Death".  The whole article is worth reading in its entirety, but here are a few excerpts that provided me with some solace during those really difficult days of grieving:

"Every one of us is going to die someday, so there is no use in being afraid of death. You don’t feel miserable at the prospect of losing consciousness of your body in sleep; you accept sleep as a state of freedom to look forward to. So is death; it is a state of rest, a pension from this life. There is nothing to fear. When death comes, laugh at it. Death is only an experience through which you are meant to learn a great lesson: you cannot die.

....

The body is only a garment. How many times you have changed your clothing in this life, yet because of this you would not say that you have changed. Similarly, when you give up this bodily dress at death you do not change. You are just the same, an immortal soul, a child of God.

....

Death is not the end: it is temporary emancipation, given to you when karma, the law of justice, determines that your present body and environment have served their purpose, or when you are too weary or exhausted by suffering to bear the burden of physical existence any longer. To those who are suffering, death is resurrection from the painful tortures of flesh into awakened peace and calmness. To the elderly, it is a pension earned by years of struggling through life. For all, it is a welcome rest."

Philosophy of Dying: Socrates

The ancient Greek philosopher Socrates (circa 470 - 399 BCE) is often thought of as the founder of Western philosophy.  He was also considered a highly controversial figure.  Accused of corrupting the youth of Athens, Socrates was sentenced to death after a one day trial, for which he was made to drink from the poisonous hemlock plant.  

Gregory Elder, a professor emeritus of history and a priest in the Roman Catholic Church, offers some fascinating insights into Socrates's views on death and dying:

"The body, [Socrates] asserted, was a messy pit of passions and rude cravings. The soul, rather than the flesh alone, was capable of seeing truth, and therefore death was the moment when the soul would be set free to find true virtue and happiness.

....

Socrates’ friends asked how he could be so sure the soul was immortal. What if it just died with the flesh? How does one know that the soul really exists at all?

What if men and women are in reality just talking meat machines?

....

First of all, he argued, the soul must be immortal because life always comes from the dead as we see in nature. In the decaying of organic matter, new life in the fields always emerges. As nature always seems to generate new life out of decay, so too the soul must emerge alive when the crumbling flesh perishes.

Death, he said, will be like waking up from a sleep."

Father Gregory's article, which is definitely worth reading in its entirety, can be found here.

Books That Have Helped: C.S. Lewis's "A Grief Observed"

One of my priorities at Living Alongside Grief is to identify various books that have helped me through the grieving process.  I cannot promise or guarantee that any particular book will help you.  We all grieve differently and we all find solace in different places and from different sources.  But hopefully you will find something useful from the myriad of sources that have been helpful for me.

One particular book that has been helpful for me is the classic "A Grief Observed" by C.S. Lewis.  Written in 1961, Lewis originally wrote the book under the pseudonym of N.W. Clerk.  It might be puzzling why Lewis decided to do this, until you start reading it.  Lewis had just lost his wife, Joy Davidman, the previous year.  Lewis refers to his wife pseudonymously as "H." throughout the book.

What I love about this book is the fact that Lewis does not come off as the confident, steadfast, never-doubting Christian theologian that some might imagine him to be.  If anything, he invites us into his world of emptiness and misery and apathy, where even simple tasks are hard to accomplish:

"And no one ever told me about the laziness of grief....I loathe the slightest effort.  Not only writing but even reading a letter is too much.  Even shaving.  What does it matter now whether my cheek is rough or smooth?"

Even more insightful is his attitude towards God, which has shifted quite dramatically upon the death of his wife:

"Meanwhile, where is God?  This is one of the most disquieting symptoms.  When you are happy....you will be....welcomed with open arms.  But go to Him when your need is desperate, when all other help is in vain, and what do you find? A door slammed in your face, and a sound of bolting and double bolting on the inside.  After that, silence.  You may as well turn away.  The longer you wait, the more emphatic the silence will become."

Lewis doesn't lose his faith in spite of his terrible loss, and the book is an intimate look into the mind of a great man who eventually comes to realize that we may never get the answers to the questions we seek, and he's okay with that:

"When I lay these questions before God, I get no answer.  But a rather special sort of 'No answer.'  It is not the locked door.  It is more like a silent, certainly not uncompassionate, gaze.  As though he shook His head not in refusal but waiving the question.  Like, 'Peace, child; you don't understand!'"

At only 89 pages (some editions have an extended afterword by Chad Walsh, a professor at Beloit College who was personally acquainted with Lewis), "A Grief Observed" is a quick read, but one filled with numerous insights and wisdom about the struggles one endures while learning to live with loss.

Depicting Grief in Art: Edvard Munch

Norwegian expressionist painter Edvard Munch (1863-1944) is best known for his iconic work "The Scream", but for those of us who are struggling with grief, there's another one of his works that deserves mention: "Death in the Sickroom", painted sometime around 1896.  Munch's inspiration for the painting was traced back to his sister Sophie, who died from tuberculosis in 1877 at the age of 15.

Munch was known to have struggled with depression and anxiety throughout his life.  His depiction shows us that grief can be both a collective and, simultaneously, a profoundly individual, and even isolating experience.