My 84 year old Aunt Jeanne is lying in a hospice outside of Memphis facing death. At least she is trying to face Death, but that is proving tricky. She twists her weakened neck to turn her face to where she feels Death must be; sometimes she moans with the effort, sometimes even a moan takes too much strength. But when she lets her mouth fall open and hang there, so that Death might fly unimpeded into her ruined body and mercifully tear her from it, she feels nothing but more unwelcome oxygen flowing into her aching lungs. And then someone, maybe a nurse, maybe her sister or her daughter, comes along and closes her mouth.
Death is not present, no matter that she calls and calls without words. Her brittle bones call him, her pale, freckled flesh that hangs on those bones, calls him, the nerves under her scalp call him, the ends of her dull reddish hair snake out into the air seeking him. But Death is busy. He is elsewhere. He is in Syria and Congo, Afghanistan and Iraq. He is in Nigeria and Sudan and Somalia, Yemen and Chechnya. He’s right behind the driver’s seat of the black kid in America pulled over for a broken tail light or for nothing at all. He has his hands full of babies and young people in their prime in Yemen, schoolteachers and doctors in Afghanistan, old people so terrified by bombs in Raqqa that they find themselves running again—something they thought they could no longer do. He’s got new mothers and fathers to attend to, he’s got the oldest sister, the youngest brother, the unlucky cousin, the lucky cousin who got away yesterday but not today. He’s got all those unfortunate university students that were busy starting what they thought would be predictable, successful, ordinary and long lives in all those countries where hate and fear have combined to a toxic gas that permeates the skin and burns its way into dreams. He’s got The War on Drugs, The War on Terror, the civil wars and the cartel wars and the wars based on skin color and language and which side of the tracks you live on, the wars for petroleum or copper or diamonds, the wars based on nothing more than their own long and sickening two-sided histories.
Remember, there is only one Death and his job description says he must do it all. So if you are ready, not only ready but willing, especially if you are begging—take a number— you have to wait; you aren’t going anywhere and Death knows it. It’s the ones that are not ready, the ones running, the ones swimming for their lives after the boat capsizes, the ones hiding under broken concrete, holding their breath until the footsteps recede, the ones shivering in cells, the ones praying for a better test result in the hospital, the ones trying with everything they have left to outsmart him—those are ones that keep Death busy. The old woman in the hospice outside of Memphis? She’ll wait. What choice does she have?This world is a cruel and demanding overlord and Death but an overworked and weary servant.
We, my extended family, wish we could help Death out right now. We wish we could solve the problems of the world so that Death could catch a break; so that he could simply attend to those calling out to him; so that Aunt Jeanne could summon him and hear his calm, confident voice, just as she imagined it, so compassionate, so welcoming and safe, much like she remembers the sound of mornings when she was very small; Saturday mornings on Montevista Street, with the whir and catch of push-mowers and birdsong in every tree, the soft brushing sound of distant traffic, her mother and father talking downstairs, the neighborhood kids calling her name by the side door.
Death is not present, no matter that she calls and calls without words. Her brittle bones call him, her pale, freckled flesh that hangs on those bones, calls him, the nerves under her scalp call him, the ends of her dull reddish hair snake out into the air seeking him. But Death is busy. He is elsewhere. He is in Syria and Congo, Afghanistan and Iraq. He is in Nigeria and Sudan and Somalia, Yemen and Chechnya. He’s right behind the driver’s seat of the black kid in America pulled over for a broken tail light or for nothing at all. He has his hands full of babies and young people in their prime in Yemen, schoolteachers and doctors in Afghanistan, old people so terrified by bombs in Raqqa that they find themselves running again—something they thought they could no longer do. He’s got new mothers and fathers to attend to, he’s got the oldest sister, the youngest brother, the unlucky cousin, the lucky cousin who got away yesterday but not today. He’s got all those unfortunate university students that were busy starting what they thought would be predictable, successful, ordinary and long lives in all those countries where hate and fear have combined to a toxic gas that permeates the skin and burns its way into dreams. He’s got The War on Drugs, The War on Terror, the civil wars and the cartel wars and the wars based on skin color and language and which side of the tracks you live on, the wars for petroleum or copper or diamonds, the wars based on nothing more than their own long and sickening two-sided histories.
Remember, there is only one Death and his job description says he must do it all. So if you are ready, not only ready but willing, especially if you are begging—take a number— you have to wait; you aren’t going anywhere and Death knows it. It’s the ones that are not ready, the ones running, the ones swimming for their lives after the boat capsizes, the ones hiding under broken concrete, holding their breath until the footsteps recede, the ones shivering in cells, the ones praying for a better test result in the hospital, the ones trying with everything they have left to outsmart him—those are ones that keep Death busy. The old woman in the hospice outside of Memphis? She’ll wait. What choice does she have?This world is a cruel and demanding overlord and Death but an overworked and weary servant.
We, my extended family, wish we could help Death out right now. We wish we could solve the problems of the world so that Death could catch a break; so that he could simply attend to those calling out to him; so that Aunt Jeanne could summon him and hear his calm, confident voice, just as she imagined it, so compassionate, so welcoming and safe, much like she remembers the sound of mornings when she was very small; Saturday mornings on Montevista Street, with the whir and catch of push-mowers and birdsong in every tree, the soft brushing sound of distant traffic, her mother and father talking downstairs, the neighborhood kids calling her name by the side door.
