Life and death: fair or unfair?

Last night I received a message from a friend to say that her Aunt had died suddenly, along with the common expression about it never being the nasty people who are taken.  She also talked about how life felt like a complete 'bag of sick' sometimes.
All of these are of course understandable sentiments and knee-jerk reactions to grief and sudden loss.
In this modern society we have somehow managed to distract ourselves from the simple fact of death that is actually going on all around us.  Every day as we go about our business people are dying, sometimes very much alone and feeling that the world doesn't care about them.

Back in earlier times mortality was not swept under the rug in such a fashion.  With poor public health and short life expectancies, it was very much an acknowledged part of the daily human experience.
Nothing can fully prepare us for the sudden loss of a loved one, or the gripping realisation of our own mortality that is a common part of the mid-life crisis.  But if we take a moment on a regular basis to accept and recognise the role of death in the bigger human story, the impact can be a little less horrific.

Is life and death fair?  What do we really mean by fair?  We don't want to experience loss and most of us aren't too delighted about the idea of our own demise, but does the fact that they are a part of life make them unfair?  Would you want to choose WHEN your loved ones die, knowing that they had to sometime?

Whenever the 'good' suffer and the 'wicked' go unpunished, we can point at it and say that life is not fair.  Perhaps what we mean is that we are upset that in a world where we like to control as much as possible, the reality of our own helplessness is a scary concept.
As sure as sunrise and sunset, all the 'bad' people will eventually share in these common human experiences.

From time to time I like to take a walk in a cemetery, and read some of the inscriptions about the people buried there.  Plenty of those graves clearly haven't had any attention for some time, and presumably if they had any surviving descendants they are now so far removed from their lost relative that the fact of their passing has little current relevance.
What were those people like, and how did they live their lives?  Did they feel indestructible in their youth, and vulnerable in old age?  Did they take time to acknowledge and accept death, before returning to the business of living all they could while they were alive?

I have put a link here to a beautiful song by country singer Tim McGraw, which is all about a man in his early forties who is diagnosed with a life-threatening illness.  It describes how his outlook on life changes, how the final moments of his father's life were more special because of his new attitude, and how he wishes others would get the chance to live like they were dying.  Perhaps in our hurried world where we pursue the next materialistic 'thing' day in day out, accepting death and mortality in this way could be the most beautiful and loving experience to enrich our lives.

Death adding value to LIFE?  Poor old Grim Reaper, that just doesn't seem fair...

Out of this world...

Watched 'Cocoon' and 'Cocoon - The Return' the other day.  It's been a while since I last saw them, but I think there have rarely been two films made that so honestly and tenderly explore the concepts of getting old, the gradual frailty that so often engulfs the human body, and ultimately death and what that means to those left behind.

It's worth watching both films in rapid succession.  In the first, old age citizens at death's door escape to a planet where they will remain fit and healthy and never die.  In the second they come back to Earth, where they are exposed to their own mortality once more.  Some succumb, a couple return to the planet (for reasons I won't spoil if you haven't seen it), and others choose to stay behind and face the inevitable.
Somehow in the reasoning behind their choice, and also in the story of another man who is grieving for his lost wife but learns to live again while he is still alive himself, the seemingly unfair spectre of our own mortality actually reveals a hidden beauty.  They are films that will leave you with a determination to make every day count, a tinge of sadness at seeing the path we all must take, but also a realisation that something about death is perhaps not all bad if we don't take ourselves too seriously in the here and now.

How should medical professionals deliver your 'Final Notice?'

A friend of mine was crying in my arms the other day, as her mother of 63 is approaching the final throes of death by cancer.  As well as the sadness and heartache of not wanting to lose her mother, she was also crying about the awful way in which the doctors matter-of-factly relayed a shopping list of conditions and just left her to get on with it.  It promoted a discussion between us about how doctors should deal with this kind of information delivery, whether they should at least preted to care, or whether not caring was their own coping mechanism to stop them taking it all home with them.

This book by Pauline Chen sounds like an interesting read from somebody who has observed that part of the medical profession from the other side of the fence...

Some quotes about mortality

Don't fear your mortality, because it is this very mortality that gives meaning and depth and poignancy to all the days that will be granted to you.

Paul Tsongas

For me, the first fact of human existence is the human body. But if you embrace the reality of the human body, you embrace mortality, and that is a very difficult thing for anything to do because the self-conscious mind cannot imagine non-existence. It's impossible to do.

David Cronenberg

In reality, we are all travelers - even explorers of mortality.

Thomas S Monson

Parents, however old they and we may grow to be, serve among other things to shield us from a sense of our doom. As long as they are around, we can avoid the fact of our mortality; we can still be innocent children.

Jane Howard

Life is a sexually transmitted disease and the mortality rate is one hundred percent.

R. D. Laing

I don't take things for granted, because everything feels more fragile. It's made me wonder about mortality and how long you've got somebody in the world. I'm more fearful than I used to be.

Robin Gibb

I believe that every human soul is teaching something to someone nearly every minute here in mortality.

M. Russell Ballard