“Is that any way to treat your old man?”, Dad used to joke when I was a teenager. He must have been in his forties at the time and I never really thought of him as old. I don’t think he did either. He was just older.
As time went by though, he did get old. Old in body and in spirit. As a confidant, I watched as fear crept into his days and his language. In later days, “old man” became a pejorative term instead of the ironic joke it once was.
Maybe it was caregiving, maybe it was just growing up, but one of the most profound teachings I acquired was seeing how fears can disconnect a person from who they are. Instead, the person comes to embody the fears.
The Big D
As fears go, being afraid of dying is probably one of the most common. I openly confess that I have no real enthusiasm for firsthand experience of the process but I am learning to cultivate a familiarity that does comfort me.
Mostly, I use Dad’s experiences as examples of what not to do when getting older. In trying to run away from what was coming, he lost out on a whole lot of joy in the moment. Anger and regret seemed to be his go-to emotions. Emotions are okay but these didn’t really give back anything useful.
Dad’s passing was one of several I have experienced over the years, though his was one that I had a lot more of myself invested in than most. The most profound and simplest learning (aren’t they always?) I have developed about death is that I need to make a friend of death. Not in any morbid sense but in the simple acceptance of the inevitable and live in the now.
Mindfulness has a lot of hocus pocus marketing attached to it these days but the actual practice works especially well for me. To take the time and effort to stop and do nothing except be in the moment connects me to where I have been and where I am. Stopping to witness connections that bond me with who I am can be profound.
I love gardening but I often go into the yard to just be there. To witness the current events of the garden presents the same natures in myself. New life starting, struggles for survival, decline and eventually death right there next to my patio.
Perspective, man.
Embracing What We Have
So Dad showed me what it means to go out being afraid. The empowering part of that experience is showing that I have a choice to decide differently. I will not begrudge anyone who chooses to go out frightened. We have a society that is driven on promoting fear as a marketing tool. Becoming a fearful person is a natural consequence.
If however, one should want to choose differently, we can.
“The fear of death follows from the fear of life. A man who lives fully is prepared to die at any time.”
― Mark Twain
Dad's Back 