Several past posts have been about The D Word, but this post will be more objective, less emotional, almost dry, in discussing the impact of Death.

In youth, there was lots of death (sic). Pets died, farm animals died, insects got squashed, and fish got caught…and eaten. Very few of those deaths were looked at as Death (sic). Insects don’t deserve to live, anyway, and pets, well, pets came and went. Many dogs and cats wandered off the farm never to be seen again. Often, we’d find bones in the farm fields but never made any connection. At least the adults said there wasn’t any. The only emotional loss on the farm was when we shipped a favorite calf or piglet to the slaughterhouse, and as young’uns we didn’t actually knew what it meant at the time.

The facts of life don’t take long to be revealed, however, and around the eighth grade an emotion surfaced in talking about Death. What happened to Uncle Carl was defined as “passing”, per mom. It was her brother and a favorite uncle. He smoked cigarettes from packs rolled up in his tee shirt sleeves, drank, used hair product, and liked to lean on the hood of his convertible. In the 1950s and 60. He visited the farm regularly and called me “Sport”. When he stopped coming, it was weeks before I asked mom. She set me and my brother on the couch and announced “Carl won’t be coming anymore”, and as we kids pondered what we did wrong she added, “He has passed on.”

Death made itself known eventually, and we had some disagreements, but I came to understand and accepted it which was easy since my death was so far away. An early and now long-gone girlfriend said I was a great comfort at funerals. As a big, strong, quiet man woman liked to cry on me, no matter their age.

Now, an approaching Death needs to be an arbitrary factor in equations and discussions about End of Life. Input all known variables and solve for X. The word death meant nothing to the young mind and now means nothing to the old mind. In fact, Death, now, is simply the next event, the next inevitable stage of Life. Some of those were turning 13, turning 16, kissing a girl (thanks Cousin Debbie), buying beer, college, marriage, kids, marriage again, marriage again (Yes, sadly, not a typo), grandkids, and retirement. These were most of the major events looked forward to and anticipated. The first beer, by the way, was so bad, how could anyone drink it?

But beer might help with Death, if you think about it. I love beer, now, so maybe, after death…?

Naw. The equation aspect of death is a result of living. When someone near my age dies, and when someone older than me dies, there are two different equations: How much longer than the former have I lived, and do I have as much time left, as the latter. I’ve mentioned before, the age of Death and how it had to be determined for End of Life Financial Planning. Mine is 84, the age mom died. Dad died at 51, so…

The Death Equation became harder to solve when The Calamities hit. They skewed the values of certain parts of the formula, at one point even suggested a final solution, variables be damned. In sharing my experiences with friends/cohorts in my age group, it seems we all suffer something, eventually, and don’t know what to do about it. Sharing experiences has a warning implied, and several cohorts have learned of a new calamity thanks to the exposing of someone else’s old one. I learned about my new calamity, one I never would have suspected, from the reported trials of a friend in Florida.

Another friend has a better description of the equation: we are all old cars. Any car lover worth his clicking torque wrench knows there comes a time when it doesn’t make any sense to repair an old car. You fix one thing, and something else fails. Just let it go.

A recent afternoon text back and forth with a friend whose PSA is over 4 was about the worst calamity to get in old age. My choice: Cognitive Impairment (CI). Cancer, Arthritis, AMD, none seem as bad as CI. But later, as I thought about all this, I asked myself: what if I had Ci, would I not have Death to think about?

No one knows. Or at least has ever mentioned anything.

Maybe I’ll look up that Psychic I dated in the 70s…as long as she doesn’t mention marriage, again…