Like it or not, we are, all of us, always in the company of the dying because we’re all headed there sooner or later. If we’re fortunate, our lives fill up the space and time between us and death with delightful meaning and reassuring connections. But that moment will come, for each of us, when the living is thrown into stark counterpoint to the dying.
For me that moment came when my father died. I’d been to funerals, even lost a friend or two, but somehow those didn’t drag life into the presence of death, didn’t undeniably illuminate that intimate tango in a way that held my gaze, would not let me look away. I had the privilege of sitting with my dad for the last two weeks of his life, but that feeling of privilege came later, after the late nights by his bedside, after he finally asked for an exit, after driving around Jackson Mississippi just before sunrise hoping I wouldn’t get stopped when I realized I had several empty ampules of morphine in my shirt pocket… “Honest, Officer…”
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