Posted by
adriano on Thursday, December 07, 2006 2:52:41 PM
Today, a friend of some 25 years died. I didn't get to say a proper "goodbye". I knew her cancer had recurred. Her husband, who over the years had become a closer friend to me than her, had called some weeks ago to tell me. He expressed his confidence that it could be overcome.
The news, instead, became worse. So, I called her on the phone at the hospital where she was receiving daily radiation treatments. I didn't visit her though and, when we spoke, I made some lame excuse about that. Not a lie, a real excuse, but lame nonetheless.
I offered her words of encouragement although I had concluded, from all the information I had, that she was not going to survive for very long. She said all the right things about her hopes and expectations and about how, like always, she would celebrate Christmas with her family. I don't recall my glib response. "Of course you will". Or "no reason why not". Or "anything is possible". Or something. In any case, our exchange nonetheless reflected, in my opinion, a mutual awareness of just what exactly we were talking about. "I'm supposed to die, but I'm going to fight it". "Of course you will and, God willing, you'll succeed".
God expressed his will and the next news, several weeks later, was not unexpected even though the timing of such things always is. She had been taken to a hospice recently and, frankly, her husband would be surprised if she survived another day. So I determined to visit her the next day to say a real "goodbye" even though her husband said he would prefer if I remembered her the way she used to be. She looked really bad now, even compared to the earlier deterioration in her appearance.
I set out the next morning for my visit but, in an abundance of caution, I called first. "She's not here anymore. I suggest you contact the family". "She's not here anymore". So true. And no longer could I say, except to the ether, what it was I wanted to tell her. I missed her death by 6 hours. I missed my father's by 1. I missed my mother's by 5.
I don't know anything about my mother's final minutes. I don't know anything about my friend's. When I arrived at the hospital after my father's death, his body was waiting for me. At the end, my brother reported, his body just sort of stiffened and he promptly expired. I kissed his lifeless forehead.
What might I have told my friend at the very end? I had thought to tell her that science has established the almost illusory nature of time and its dependency on the relative motion of matter. That, if there were a spirit and some existence after death, that it was in a "place" without time. That if she were sad about leaving her loved ones behind, they would, paradoxically, all be there to meet her because, in timelesness, they would all have already died as well. That the only loss to be experienced would be by her loved ones. They would experience her loss for the rest of their lives. That the suffering of loss was confined within time and was itself not eternal.
Would she have cared what I said, even had she heard me? This was no message of a personal universe. No message of salvation. No message from the heart. Just a message from my rational mind unaware of the experience of communion with the Divine. Hers had been a more spiritual life, rationally imbued by what are characteristically called irrational experiences. Direct forms of knowing what I might only rationally divine (pun intended), but not experience. Describe love to someone. Have them experience love. Describe Beethoven's Ninth to someone. Have them listen to it. Describe Michelangelo's David. Have someone stand before it.
No. Better that I didn't get there on time. What I had to say would not have helped. She would only have felt bad for me before she left. I kissed my hand and touched the coffin that bore her lifeless body.