Courageous Battles

Wow!   The act of dying, that moment; it’s got to be intense; it’s got to be a shocker.   But, you’re probably going to dead for awhile, and maybe that can be a little calming, maybe even boring.   Now, according to most evidence*, it looks like you might be dead for a long time, maybe millions of years…. maybe longer, maybe forever.  So in a way, being dead for millions of years, or even forever, begins to sound like a pretty OK deal.  It looks like being dead is identical to what it was like before you were born.  Remember that?

 I’ve got a 34 year old dislocated toe, a right pinky finger that was bent twice 90% the wrong way, a missing joint in my middle finger of my left hand where I gave body parts to a table saw, and a left sacroiliac joint that goes “twingey” every now and again.  I wear hearing aids when I remember to, and I’m near sighted (so if I put my glasses down I can’t find them), and even though my prescription hasn’t changed in five years, the opticians of the world refuse to replace my scratched up and broken glasses.  I’ve got a tick bite that still itches eight months after I got it. That’s the easy stuff. 

Arthritis in my left thumb, carpal tunnel (after repair) in my right wrist that now has my hand swollen twice the size of the left one (did I mention that I used to like playing the guitar?) I am finding it difficult to pick up a full coffee cup with it.  Both hands are weak, sore, and inflexible; they hurt when they aren’t numb, often they awaken me from a sound sleep at night.  Both shoulders have had surgery and neither of them are above 60% of normal strength (much less pain free), I’ve got ED, and I have to get up to pee two to three times a night.  Right now I have had six weeks of bloody buggers.  I’ve still got a baby tooth, but the space between it and one of the eight molars I have left (most people have twelve) gets wedged with food debris at every bite.  I’ve aged at least ten years in the last six months.

 

I would never denigrate the “courageous, brave, and inspiring battles” that so many other people have waged; people who have far more daunting physical challenges than I have.  But, they are going to die, and I am going to die; so at what point is it wise to just recognize that simple fact and make a rational decision as to what it is all worth?   I’ve already suggested that being dead can’t possibly be bad.  Are those “courageous battles” really against death, or are they simply denials of reality?  Especially for those who believe in an afterlife!

*All evidence, really.