A co-worker is dying.
I don’t know which is worse, a death observed, or to pass through that door in an instant—from hale and happy on one side, to whatever is on the other side faster than the click of a light switch.
I’m sure when the time comes for me, I will have nothing to say. Everyone agrees that suffering—and complaining about it endlessley—appeals to me. So I will probably not go quickly. Which means, when the time comes, I may very well have nothing left to say. Too bad.
It may be that those of beauty and few words go quickly and in their youth; if so, one could make a case that the other side were being choosy, preferring the comely and nimble over the whining and atrophied. After all, as the saying goes, ‘only the good die young.’ But maybe this only means that many of us don’t particularly lament the passing of those who remain youthful and attractive, seemingly without end. Dying at old age and without apparent suffering seems to deserve less sympathy than a death after long suffering or short life.
And I don’t know which is better: To depart abruptly, with no sour anticipation. Or to go with plenty of warning—enough time to build a monument to goodbye. Clearly I have chosen the latter, but that was out of fear, believing it postponed the end somehow, not because I thought it nobler. And it may have had nothing to do with the delay of my demise. But, being human, I do like the delusion of control.
Or maybe whining does delay the end…