I have been thinking a great deal about death lately. My grandfather, Richard Shertzer, died at the age of 91 on Monday, October 3rd. That was about three days ago. Barely.
So, death.
The thing that I hate but also appreciate the most about death is the jarring way that it shakes you into recognizing that you're alive, but that life isn't actually a permanent condition. I tend to forget that, myself.
I have a cartoon hung up in my office: it has a picture of a man sitting behind his desk in front of which is Death, standing in his black cloak and waiting with his scythe. The man is saying, "Thank goodness you're here-- I can't accomplish anything without a deadline." I love this cartoon. Not only do I love it because I am a procrastinator, I love it because the death deadline continually slips my mind. Oh, right! I'm going to die one day!
I'm not alone in my thinking, I'm sure-- this is why we tell each other, "carpe diem! seize the day!"
On my grandfather. Grandpa was a very soft, gentle person. I have heard that these qualities became stronger in him as he got older and I only knew him as an older man. We didn't understand each others worlds in many ways, my grandfather & I. Perhaps it was our upbringing: I was raised in the central city of Communist Ethiopia and he was raised in a relatively cloistered Mennonite community in Lancaster, PA.
There is such a lack of resolution in death. I had been meaning to write to my grandfather "one of these days," as one does. But I didn't. And now, the time for that has passed. This is what is so disturbing about death. There is no dialogue after death; just enormous and silent finality. How ironic that our last action, however passive it may be, is to die. And thus, our lives are resolved, but we leave a complete lack of resolution for those we leave behind.
