Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
With these words Joan Didion begins her memoir The Year of Magical Thinking in which she retells the events around the death of her husband.
She writes, "December 30, 2003, a Tuesday."
"We had seen Quintana (their daughter who was hospitalized for septic shock) in the sixth-floor ICU at Beth Israel North.
We had come home.
We had discussed whether to go out for dinner or eat in.
I said I would build a fire, we could eat in.
I built a fire, I started dinner, I asked John if he wanted a drink.
I set the table in the living room where, when we were home alone, we could eat within sight of the fire....
Fires said we were home, we had drawn the circle, we were safe through the night.
John asked for a second drink before sitting down. I gave it to him.
We sat down. My attention was on mixing the salad.
John was talking, then he wasn't.
I have no idea which subject we were on...at the instant he stopped talking.
I only remember looking up. His hand was raised and he was slumped motionless.
At first I thought he was making a failed joke.
I remember saying Don't do that...
At that very moment John Gregory Dunn, Joan Didion's husband, had suffered a massive and fatal coronary.
According to the aptly named web site Deathclock.com, I will die on August 20, 2044 at the age of 98.
How they determine this is a little unclear since they ask only a few rudimentary questions such as when was I born?
Am I a smoker? What is my body-mass index?
And whether I view myself as a pessimist, optimist, sadist or quote normal.
Now, according to a similar site I can only expect to make it to 88 but they asked several more questions including questions about alcohol use, exposure to pollutants and the sun.
But, hey, to expect to live to be somewhere between 88 and 98 isn't half bad.
It isn't half bad, that is, as long as I am not debilitated by heart disease, cancer, stroke, Alzheimer's, arthritis or any of the other conditions that make growing old such a challenge.
As Nancy's mother used to say, "growing old isn't for sissy's."
Now death is one of those topics that is often discussed in intellectual and abstract terms.
We talk about living wills and arranging for power of attorney, we develop trusts and wills.
Many funeral homes offer seminars on end-of-life planning and most cemeteries have something called "preneed" arrangements.
Isn't preneed one of the best euphemisms ever?
In fact, more and more Americans are entering into preneed agreements to purchase funeral and burial goods and services prior to death.
Currently, preneed agreements exceed $25 billion and two in five persons age 50 and over reported that they had been contacted about the advance purchase of burial goods and services.
It seems that we are far more comfortable talking about what we refer to as end-of-life issues such as palliative care, hospice, and death with dignity, some even speak of wishing for a "good" death whatever that might mean-than really looking at how each of us will come to terms with our own death.
Beyond the business and financial considerations of death, the reality that we all must die gives rise to all kinds of interesting questions.
What is the meaning of our existence?
Where were we before our birth?
What will happen to our sense of self after we die?
What will we experience at the time of death?
Will we be aware of our own death?
Will we be aware of crossing over from this life to something different?
"Comes the day when life stops," writes Cynthia Johnson
"Sometimes abruptly. Unscheduled. Unplanned."
"The calendar full of appointments for tomorrows not to be. Large things, like tickets bought but not to be used."
"Like dinner parties for which invitations have been offered and responses received. Like speeches scheduled and project deadlines agreed to."
"Small things like clothes at the dry cleaners. Like a small stack of phone messages to be returned. Like two lamb chops thawing for tonight's dinner."
"No one's Daytimer, no one's calendar, lists "Death-all day Wednesday" as the final appointment."
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends
My first near death experience occurred back in 1976.
I was on a Transworld Airlines flight from Anchorage Alaska, to Chicago when shortly after take off I choked on a section of grapefruit. Unable to breathe I quickly lost consciousness.
My traveling companion looked over and saw what was happening and yelled out for someone to help.
Now in the mid seventies the Heimlich maneuver was just becoming well known and I was lucky that one person on the flight knew how to use the procedure and he was able to pull me out of my seat and get me breathing.
Now I know all of this because I was told that it had happened. I had no memory of eating the slice of grapefruit.
I recalled no sensations of choking or of passing out.
It wasn't until I woke up on the floor of the 747 jumbo jet with almost three hundred people staring at me that I began to understand that something quite significant had just occurred.
And even then it took several minutes to come out of the cloud of unconsciousness and to figure out where I was and how I got there.
How long was I unable to breathe? Probably two or three minutes? How close did I come to dying? Close enough that shall we say in polite terms, my body had let go.
Even to this day I'm not sure know what to make of this experience.
What did I learn about death?
There were no tunnels, no bright lights, no beckoning hands. There was nothing.
Nothing to fear. Nothing to dread. Nothing to remember. Nothing.
During my days as a chaplain at Georgetown University Hospital I was present with several patients as they neared death.
While most were heavily sedated or unresponsive there were some who were awake.
Some were confident that the end of life as we know it would indeed mark the beginning of another life in heaven in the presence of God and Jesus and a reunion with loved ones who had gone before.
Others had a more pragmatic approach. I recall one cancer patient saying "I don't know what will happen to me, but I can't be any worse than this."
But the patients who seemed to have the hardest time accepting their own deaths were the ones who had the deepest regrets about their lives.
There were fathers who had never said "I love you" to their children.
There were siblings who were estranged from one another.
There were children of abuse and neglect who had never been able to forgive or to understand the actions of their parent and were unable to do so even at the deathbed.
It fell on the chaplain to try and heal some of these hurts.
To call a brother who lived far away and say that there wasn't much time and could they come soon.
To urge a parent to reconcile with a child so that whatever fears or anger might be pushing them apart could be talked about and hopefully healed.
There were prayers said, hands held, and tears shared.
And when connections were made, when love was re-established and expressed, when words of forgiveness and understanding were spoken, then death came more easily.
In many cases the struggle with death turned out to have been a struggle with the unfinished business of life.
During the last weeks of her life, Nancy's mother lived in a nursing home and received palliative care from Hospice.
Kay was a strong believer in her Presbyterian faith.
Several times she expressed her fears that she would not be reunited in heaven with Nancy and I and her grandchildren because we had not accepted Jesus as our personal savior.
One day when we were all together she raised this issue with the hospice chaplain.
Rocky, what a great name for a chaplain, assured her that God was a God of love and that when she crossed over the river from this life to the next she would indeed to reunited with her loved ones.
He said he was sure that God knew that Nancy and I were good people and that God wouldn't punish her for any shortfalls we might have.
He assured her that she need not fear that death would separate her from those she loved.
These words seemed to bring her great peace and enabled her to let go of life.
In the marvelous book, "Tuesdays with Morrie," by Mitch Albom, Morrie, who is dying, passes on his wisdom to the author.
"'Everyone knows they're going to die"' he writes..., "but nobody believes it. If we did, we would do things differently... There's a better approach."
"To know you're going to die, and to be prepared for it at any time. That's better. That way you can actually be more involved in your life while you're living."
In the brief time that each of us is alive and conscious it is important that we connect with others and to our world-that we strive to be mindful of the interconnected web of all existence of which we are a part.
We all know that in time death will ultimately claim us, our beloved friends, and the dearest members of our families.
I believe that when we live in fear of dying we also live in fear of our living.
Can we be fully present in the here and now if we are distracted by thoughts of what comes next?
Gordon McKeemon tells us to be open to simple things that are not simple at all. To be aware of the miracles of the common way...of sunset sand sunrises...seedtime and harvest....hope....joy and ecstasy."
The psychologist Rollo May tells us that the "awareness of death is the source of the zest for life."
And the poet Jane Kenyon writes:
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
To the birch wood.
All morning I did
The work I love...
And planned another day
Just like this day.
But one day, I know,
It will be otherwise."
Yes, for each of us here this morning one day it will be otherwise.
As a Unitarian I believe that it is our living that gives our lives meaning. As a universalist I believe that in our dying we will be one with all that is and has been.
It is our living that is passed down generation to generation. It is our living that is immortal.
Our legacy is not only in our genes that get passed own generation to generation but it is also in the many ways we have touched the lives of others.
How we live in the here and now is far more important than any life we might have in the hereafter.
Some of us may have been told during our first days of college to "Look to the right and to look to the left. Only one of you will be here at graduation."
Well, I ask you for a moment to look at the person on your left and the person on your right and to remember their face, the color of their eyes, the light on their hair, the sparkle in their smile because one day only one of you will be here.
And this is how we face death.
We face death by holding life up for the miracle that it is.
We face death by using our biblical three score and ten to love others, to care for our families and our friends.
We face death by being aware of all that surrounds us in our living-seeing and hearing and smelling and tasting and feeling all that is beautiful, all that is now, all that is our lives.
We face death by listening to Beethoven's ninth symphony or by appreciating a painting by Edward Hooper or Andrew Wyeth or Picasso.
We face death by taking the time to hear the birds at the feeder, the surf on the rocks, the sounds of industry and the cries of children.
We face death by accepting that we are the sum of all who have gone before us and understanding that we will be a part of all who come after.
Mark Twain, in one of his essays, tells us that:
"Life was not a valuable gift, but death was. Life was a fever-dream made up of joys embittered by sorrows, pleasure poisoned by pain;
a dream that was a nightmare-confusion of spasmodic and fleeting delights, ecstasies, exultations, happinesses, interspersed with long-drawn miseries, griefs, perils, horrors, disappointments, defeats, humiliations, and despairs--the heaviest curse devisable by divine ingenuity;
but death was sweet, death was gentle, death was kind; death healed the bruised spirit and the broken heart, and gave them rest and forgetfulness;
death was man's best friend; when man could endure life no longer, death came and set him free." Letters from the Earth
So let us face death not with fear, nor with some kind of false bravery, but with understanding and acceptance that our living and our dying are just two aspects of what is.
When our time to die arrives let us not be disappointed that there isn't more; let us be grateful for everything we have had.
Then may we go gently into that good night. We have lived. We are blessed.
Life changes fast.
Life changes in the instant.
You sit down to dinner and life as you know it ends.
Amen and Blessed be