DEATH

January 30. 2009

Birren Guided Autobiography

Death

I do not fear death; I do fear dying.

Reared in the traditions and rituals of the Lutheran Church. I was familiar

with the forms of death and funerals from a very early age. The funeral

wreath on the front door of a house meant that the deceased was laid out

in the parlor for viewing; and the extended family and friends, including the

children. were expected to visit. The funeral was of course in the church,

and the long drive to the cemetery with a graveside service was always

well attended. Sunday visits to the family cemetery plot were customary.

My first close encounter with death came when I was ten years old. I was wintering in Florida with my maternal grandparents (Mom and Dad) and my

great-grandfather (Grampa Henry) when a telegram arrived to tell us that

my mother had died in childbirth when my sister was born. I was called out

of my fifth grade class (I have often wondered what the teacher told the class)

and within hours we were on our way back to Toledo, driving fifteen

hundred miles in less than three days.

But it was not until at Mother's funeral when I was sitting in the pew next to my step-father and I saw the tears on his face that I realized the import of what had happened.

During that year nine members of my family died; Mother was the first

and my great-grandfather the last. Among others, an older cousin dropped

dead at his work, and when they told his wife, she died within four hours, leaving three teen=age children.

As was the custom, children wore white for mourning, and I was in white

for a year.

Dad had a stroke and died at home my last year in high school, and Mom had

cancer and died in the hospital after a long illness when I was 25.

Although I had become an agnostic when in college, I had, and still do have,

a strong emotional connection to the church. While living in Paris I even

joined the American Episcopal Church, but now realize that it was more for my wife's sake, and the beauty of the ritual, than any true faith.

Over the years I have dealt with several suicides (my lover of thirteen years hanged himself), and my sister who has been bed-ridden since 1992 continues to threaten to kill herself though she really has no means of doing so. Although

I do believe in self-determination, this is not an option I have considered for

myself.

I have few close long-time friends who are my contemporaries; one of the last was a woman in San Francisco whose first husband sat next to me in Latin class in high school. I recently visited one of my college friends (we were freshmen at Denison in 1943) who is now living with dementia because his wishes that no heroic measures be taken to resuscitate him were ignored when he had a seizure.

I have contacted the friend who has my Power of Attorney for Health to

emphasize my own wishes.

Since I have finally acknowledged to myself that I am a true atheist (and really

have been all my life), I have no fear of death. It is simply an end.

But arriving at that end is something I cannot anticipate without fear.

Robert W. T. Feindt