May 31, 2009

May 31

Today I will broach the subject of letting people know that you’re going to die soon. I personally am at peace with my life and I realize that everybody dies sooner or later. So the fact that I know I’m going to die soon doesn’t really bother me. I still have to let those around me that the end for me will come soon. It wouldn’t be fair not to let those I love and care for know about my coming death. So one by one I’ve been informing them of what’s going on.

I feel bad for my wife, as she has to hear about my coming death over and over again. I think I’ve learned something about people in breaching this subject with them. They all take clues about how they should react according to the way they perceive the way I’m reacting to this crises. It’s always important that I feel strong before I tell people about my coming doom. Almost all of them start out in shock. I’m not sure if it’s shock about my coming death or the shock of seeing his or her mortality.

My oldest son came over with his children last Monday. They were off of school and he was off of work. I think they use that occasion to let the grandchildren know what was happening to me. Usually they run into this house and attack me with hugs and “did you knows” They came into the house and were quite silent and while they came up for their hugs it was in a tentative way. They were unusually quiet. We sat around the living room for a bit and I kept waiting for normal behavior out of them. Soon one of my grandsons reached for one of my guitars. His mother told him to not to play it (he always picks up my guitars and plays them and I like to hear him play the guitars) My wife said that it would be ok and that I had suggested that he get all of my guitars as he had requested when he was but a toddler. That seemed to break the mood and soon we were all laughing and talking together in our normal manner, as I prefer. Soon I suggested that we all go to dinner at a Pizza Parlor that had loads of games for the kids to play and we went out and had a ball.

My wife’s best friend and her husband were important people to let know how I was taking to whole thing. They are a wonderful couple and we’ve had a long history with them as our friends. My wife’s friend takes things really hard and I know that it would be a difficult time getting her to relax about this whole thing. We generally meet for dinner in a local Salad bar restaurant. This meeting was supposed to be rather short because they had other places to be that evening. So we met and got our food and sat down to eat. At first things were tense. Every time my coming death was mentioned our friend would grimace. I finally had broached this subject and tell them that I was fine talking about it and fine with my own mortality. Once we got over this the rest of the evening was fun. They never left for their other appointment and we stayed and talked until the restaurant was about to close. I want the end of my life filled with laughter and good cheer. I know that will hard for others, but I think it really up to me how people will react.

The hardest people to tell so far have been out travel agent. We were supposed to go on a long cruise in October. We were both looking forward to this trip. This illness will prevent us from going so we had to tell out travel agents to cancel this trip so that we might get back the money we’ve already put on this trip. It was very hard because our travel agents were also our friends and I felt that I was disappointing them. The canceling of this trip also is an acknowledgement that this is real. As hard as things were we persevered and did what we had to do.

I still have people to talk to about my coming demise. I have my teams, fishing buddies and other people who have become important to me. I still haven’t told one of my brothers and I really need to talk to this brother. I miss him and want him in my life toward the end.