April 7, 2005

Times FeatureMurry Frymer

Life and Death

By Murry Frymer
Times Columnist

The hills surrounding Almaden are so beautiful this spring, what with all the rain we have had. In my backyard, the lilac bushes are exquisite with a marvelous scent. I like to spend time in the back, examining the growth everywhere. Nature is a wonder to behold.

But the newspapers, which I also behold every morning, are filled with death. That’s the news business. The Terri Schiavo tragedy somewhat displaced the Iraq war news, though each is about dying. A mentally ill boy on an Indian reservation added to the death stories, shooting up his school, no longer as shocking a story as it was after the Columbine massacre.

“Massacre” is a word that gets much play these days. You can use it in reporting on one part of Africa or another, one attack in the Middle East or another. One headline tells me that 28 Iraqi prisoners were apparently murdered by our side and another tells me of the unyielding brutality on the other side, Iraqi insurgents murdering Iraqis.

What is it about death that it fills the paper? We know death is common, yet it is dreaded and fixes our attention.

We fix on Terri Schiavo, but in hospitals, hospices, and private homes, hundreds of thousands of lesser-known Terri Schiavos are currently on life support, their minutes ebbing away as we try to comfort them, or maybe comfort ourselves and our fears.

We have all known such grief. Death, as the doctor/author of the best-selling “How We Die,” Sherwin Nuland told me, is usually ugly. We don’t die well. He wrote about the common causes: cancer, heart attacks and the like. At the end there may be comas, there may be life supports and debates on whether to resuscitate. In most cases, we take the doctors’ advice, weep and move on.

I have long agonized over the fact that my mother, at the end of her time in an Ohio nursing home, died alone, comforted only by the facility’s attendants, who I believe thought of her as special. I was too far away, as was the rest of her family.

On my last visit with Mom, she had been upset and angry, not really recognizing me. “I want my life back!” she stormed. “Of course,” I muttered. But then she starved herself, realizing that it wasn’t coming back.

It is of course important that we think about death and we need to confront our fears when we do. It’s the way the story ends. For the religious, they may find fortitude in their faith, in the belief in heaven, though they too struggle with fear and uncertainty.

My father died 24 years ago after a year and a half of cancer pain. In his final years he somehow returned to his religion, going to temple more than before. I think that is common. We go looking for God, looking for some kind of assurance that we are not alone.

But impeding death is also a teacher. It teaches us about life, about how good it is to be alive for as many years as we get. It reminds us that all the ordinary things we do every day are so wonderful, from a sip of morning coffee, a walk in the park, a gathering of family, a tearful movie, a touch, a kiss. Go see Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” again and wonder at his insight into the pleasures of being alive, every single second, every joy or heartache.

The papers are full of death, of course, including the recent passing of Pope John Paul II. I don’t think the blossoming of my lilacs is front-page news, though they ought to be. They are the antidote to the death that surrounds us, but then, their blossoms will also fade and their color disappear.

Do not take them for granted. We need to grasp life while we have it, take constant pleasure in it. Death, with all its foreboding, reminds us of that.

Murry Frymer can be reached at murry@timesmediainc.com