Front pages of the two east coast newspapers that arrive on our west coast doorstep every morning featured references to a few of the primary issues this column proposes to address: staying active and upbeat while confronting one’s mortality; the multiplicity of housing shifts in late generations; and whether one’s life experiences lead to rigidity or understanding.
Even the front page of today’s True/Slant, in Scott Bowen’s innovative take on Boston Globe books and publishing writer David Mehegan’s Over and Out, takes up the end-of-life choices question which has consumed much of my time and energies over the past decade and which I tackled (albeit anecdotally) in a 1999 book, Dying Unafraid.
Now. If life experience can be applied to mastery of T/S’s technological tools – which are not, after all, quite so daunting as the above – it will be great joy for Boomers &Beyond to explore these through headline grabs, riffs and commentaries and perhaps some lively reader responses. Stay tuned.
I think it’s not necessary to look death in the eye and smile, and surely loss of those too young to die makes that impossible anyway. What I do advocate, especially for generations younger than mine, is acknowledging our own mortality and making what choices we can (you DO have your Advance Directives done, don’t you? If not I’ll walk you through them right this minute.) Loss of loved ones is tough and grief takes time. Pain, suffering & loss of control are fearsome. But however we envision our own hereafter – streets paved with gold, reincarnation as a songbird, simple peace, or perhaps a return to nothingness – dying is likely not the worst thing that ever happens.
I read Beck’s WSJ piece this morning, but I admit I skimmed it. Mortality, while inevitable, isn’t something I can focus much on these days, for a few reasons. One is the need for economic survival. The other is having lost more than a dozen friends and colleagues prematurely in the past few years, it feels way too close to home. I admire anyone who can stare death in the eye and smile, but I’m not one of them.