0511blog

The End

I am not obsessed with death but I do think it is an interesting topic.

You really can die laughing and that is exactly what happened to Chrysippus of Soli, who was 73 in 206 B.C. when he convulsed fatally in cachinnation after he saw a donkey eating his figs and he told a slave to give the donkey neat wine to wash down the figs.

Doesn’t sound hysterical to me but what is a laugh riot is that the Greek philosopher was a world class stoic, which is the total absence of joy, having developed Stoicism as one of the most influential philosophical movements for centuries in the Greek and Roman world. Death from laughter is rare, but it happens, and just ask poor Chrysippus and it usually results from either cardiac arrest or asphyxiation.

I would think dying while chuckling might be kind of pleasant, better than being ripped apart by crocodiles. Perhaps falling victim to a piano hurled out a second story window might be quick and painless. I surely would not like to be “bored to death” because that would be so, boring.

And speaking of death, I refer to the Woody Allen comment that “I’m not afraid of death; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.” I do fear death and the older I get the more convinced I am that it will eventually happen, although I’m not positive and I never talk about it because people would think I am somewhat morbid, which I tend to be although death is the proverbial elephant in the room.

I have only seen a few corpses in my life. My mother had a tortured look on her face while an artist friend who died seemed totally at peace, unless that was just a good job by the mortician. Can’t the mortician put a big smile on the face of the corpse or leave him with an open mouth and play a tape recording in the casket of the cadaver singing, before he died, that is.

I expect I will have my mouth wide open as if screaming out “Why?” or “Can this be delayed a while” and I have never liked the expression “he passed on” as if it was some kind of failure at a last quarter exam. I also recoil against “deceased” because it is such a sterile explanation of such a life-defining moment. Some say a person “expired” and that’s so impersonal as if a person is a can of tuna that is too old to eat and the same with “succumb” which is a big word that some might not understand and might misinterpret what happened. “Departed” sounds like a person is on the way to Aruba. I don’t want to be “scared to death” because that sounds so creepy and untoward.

I prefer he “died,” short, simple to the point. But I also like more exotic descriptions, like he “perished” which sounds somewhat heroic or he “croaked” even though yes, it is rather an amphibious word. “Give up the ghost” and “go the way of all flesh” are interesting and literate. Saying a person “conked” or “kicked the bucket” or a variation, “hand in one’s dinner pail,” give a real atmospheric and salt of the earth feeling about the late, great, beloved and there is the colorful “threw in the towel” and “met his Waterloo” though knowledge of the little emperor is important to understand the expression. “Bit the big one” is totally unpretentious and should be used only when the dead is someone who was known as completely upstanding and down to earth. To say someone “met his maker” is alright though it seems to indicate that we are nothing more than elaborate erector sets.

I do wonder what it will be like to be dead, will it be cold or very hot, in which case I would question where I have ended up. Will it be quiet or will there be a constant racket and will I be eternally hungry and will there be people to grouse with about the unfairness of it all and will there be people that I was just dying to never see again? And will I ever wake up, without knowing I was ever dead and without any memory of the past or will I awaken and always have this nagging feeling that I’ve been through all of this before.