It's like they're all just waiting for us…
Hey, Tim Jones, here.
I
think my grandfather's death was the first that really affected me as
it happened, though I understood the concept of death, having seen a
lot of T.V. westerns, along with media coverage of the Vietnam War, the
Kennedy assassination, the Munich Olympics and other deadly events.
I've
seen a number of deaths, since, and taken note of many more, but the
tight grouping of celebrity deaths in the last week has made me look
back over my experiences of death, and I have begun to sense a pattern.
Stay with me, here. I'm no conspiracy nut, but it begins to appear that no one
is safe, and that the chances of death for any one of us – by my rough
figures – approaches 100%. For instance, the older I get, the more
people in my general age group pop up on the news, having died in one
way or another and it is most often treated as a surprise, if not a
shock.
But the shock, to me, may be unjustified. I don't want to start a panic, but it looks to me like we may all be headed for the cemetery.
that we may gain a heart of wisdom."
Psalm 90:12
Last
week we heard first, of course, of Ed McMahon, then Farrah Fawcett,
then Michael Jackson… next, Billy Mays and this morning I read that
Fred Travalena and Gale Storm passed away.
I have no great
observations to make, except to say that the only genuine shock for me
would have been if Michael Jackson had somehow lived to a ripe old age.
I did not see how he could manage much longer. Over the past few years
he appeared to be a shell.
I have good memories of Fred Travalena, who often appeared on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show, was all over the variety show circuit, and also starred with Rich Little, Frank Gorshin and other master impressionists on The Kopycats
– a comedy show (which I never missed if I could help it) built around
impressions. He was also an extremely prolific and successful voice
actor.
Most people may not know anything much about Gale Storm, but my wife will remember My Little Margie (which was old already when we watched it) from our days as college students, when we could count our TV channels on one hand.
For
a long time, when driving by a cemetery, I have had the distinct
and unshakable sense that those dwelling under the tombstones are
watching and waiting and maybe chuckling a little… laughing at the
living and their frantic and petty preoccupations. Sometimes, I can't
help but laugh, too.
This idea of the connectedness of the living
and the dead runs deep in the human heart, and is confirmed in the
doctrine of the Communion of Saints… which is just the Church
expounding on the teaching of the Lord that "He is not the God of the
dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive." (Luke 20:38).
(This post has been carefully cross-posted by hand at Tim Jones' blog Old World Swine, for double your blogging pleasure)
Great Post Tim.
Dear Tim J.
You wrote:
(This post has been carefully cross-posted by hand at Tim Jones’ blog Old World Swine, for double your blogging pleasure)
How did you get your hands into the Internet 🙂
The idea of cross-posting reminds one of the famous Poem by John Donne,
VALEDICTION FORBIDDING MOURNING
AS virtuous men pass mildly away,
And whisper to their souls to go,
Whilst some of their sad friends do say,
“Now his breath goes,” and some say, “No.”
So let us melt, and make no noise,
No tear-floods, nor sigh-tempests move ;
‘Twere profanation of our joys
To tell the laity our love.
Moving of th’ earth brings harms and fears ;
Men reckon what it did, and meant ;
But trepidation of the spheres,
Though greater far, is innocent.
Dull sublunary lovers’ love
“Whose soul is sense”cannot admit
Of absence, ’cause it doth remove
The thing which elemented it.
But we by a love so much refined,
That ourselves know not what it is,
Inter-assured of the mind,
Care less, eyes, lips and hands to miss.
Our two souls therefore, which are one,
Though I must go, endure not yet
A breach, but an expansion,
Like gold to aery thinness beat.
If they be two, they are two so
As stiff twin compasses are two ;
Thy soul, the fix’d foot, makes no show
To move, but doth, if th’ other do.
And though it in the centre sit,
Yet, when the other far doth roam,
It leans, and hearkens after it,
And grows erect, as that comes home.
Such wilt thou be to me, who must,
Like th’ other foot, obliquely run ;
Thy firmness makes my circle just,
And makes me end where I begun.
The Chicken
P. S. I originally pulled the whole poem off of a site on the Internet and since the poem is in the public domain, could it be copyrighted on the site I pulled it off of? Oh, the absurdities of rightly copying copyrighted material. In order not to offend either Da Rulz or the U. S. copyright law, instead of using my original cribbed copy, I have, instead, used a copy from a book on Project Gutenberg, all of whose works are in the public domain. Nevertheless the copy posted, above is virtually indistinguishable from the first one, sigh.
Death is like the thief in the night. The accounting of what has been stolen, however, can only be done in the daylight.
Oh, death is a rightly sorta topic for a’posting, I reckon. Too much, too much to say. Must process.
The Chicken
Adieu, farewell earth’s bliss,
This world uncertain is :
Fond are life’s lustful joys,
Death proves them all but toys.
None from his darts can fly :
I am sick, I must die.
Lord have mercy on us !
Rich men, trust not in wealth,
Gold cannot buy you health ;
Physic himself must fade,
All things to end are made ;
The plague full swift goes by :
I am sick, I must die.
Lord have mercy on us !
Beauty is but a flower,
Which wrinkles will devour ;
Brightness falls from the air,
Queens have died young and fair,
Dust hath closèd Helen’s eye :
I am sick, I must die.
Lord have mercy on us !
Strength stoops unto the grave,
Worms feed on Hector brave,
Swords may not fight with fate,
Earth still holds ope her gate.
Come, come, the bells do cry,
I am sick, I must die.
Lord have mercy on us !
Haste therefore each degree
To welcome destiny ;
Heaven is our heritage
Earth but a player’s stage,
Mount we unto the sky :
I am sick, I must die.
Lord have mercy on us !
On this topic, whether you agree or not, Dylan Thomas makes a powerful statement with his Do Not Go Gentle Into that Good Night, and Cardinal Newman considers what happens afterward in his Dream of Gerontius.
And if you’re going to be in Chicago at the end of July/beginning of August, you can go to Millennium Park to hear the Grant Park Orchestra And Chorus performing Elgar’s setting of Gerontius in person.
Two more poems I enjoy re: ‘death’ are Poe’s The Conqueror Wurm (more for its lyrical qualities since it seems to fly against Christian Hope), and Frost’s The Disused Graveyard which asks the poignant question: “What is it men are shrinking from?”
Two others I just remembered: St. Francis’s wonderful juxtaposition of words – “Sister Death” and Ben Franklin’s cute personal epitath (perhaps not his real one):
Benjamin Franklin Potter
(Like the cover of an old book,
its contents torn out
And stripped of its
lettering and gilding)
Lies here, food for worms;
But the work shall not be lost,
For it will (as he believed)
appear once more In a new
And more elegant edition,
released and recorrected
by the Author.
Don’t forget Karl Malden – he just passed away a couple of days ago too!
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Or as William Dunbar said in his Lament for the Makers:
Sen for the deid remeid is none,
Best is that we for dede dispone,
Eftir our deid that lif may we;
Timor mortis conturbat me.