Unitarian Universalist Church of Palo Alto

Facing Death: A Reflection

Susan Owicki, Worship Associate
March 25, 2001
Palo Alto, CA

To think about death is hard. For most of us, to think about our own death is very hard. Freud said, "The ego cannot contemplate its own dissolution." He is also supposed to have said to his wife, "If one of us should die before the other, I think I'll move to Paris."

As I struggled to write this reflection, I felt the pressure of my own wish to avoid the reality of death. At a certain level, it is real to me that I will not live forever. I have, more or less, accepted that my remaining days are numbered. But most of the time I manage not to think about what comes after those numbered days.

Although I don't have any clear belief about what happens after death, I find it hard to imagine that we continue with anything like our current identity. The image of "going back into the whole" seems right. Perhaps the whole is nature, and "going back" means decaying and nourishing other life. Perhaps there is something like a universal soul, and "going back" means re-merging with that soul, letting go of the separate identity that was really an illusion. Whatever it is, it means giving up the self I have cherished for so long.

In reviewing Jessica Mitford's book The American Way of Death, Evelyn Waugh was troubled by the fact that "she has no stated attitude toward death." Ms. Mitford sent him a rebuttal through her sister. "Tell Evelyn," she said, "that I do have an attitude toward death. I'm against it."

I'm with her on that. I'm not exactly afraid of death, but I'm completely opposed to it. The prospect of that loss of self just seems too painful to bear. And yet, what alternative is there to bearing it? What is the salve for the part that does not want to go back into the whole?

I don't have the recipe. It wasn't even in the original version of the story. But I can share three items that somehow help me.

The first is a Zen story. It seems that a monk was out walking in the wild. He encountered a tiger, which immediately gave chase. The monk ran as fast as he could, with the tiger panting behind him. At last he realized that he was heading straight for the edge of a cliff. He had no choice but to jump over. With unbelievable luck, he was able to grab a root that was growing in the cliff side. His fall was broken. But then he realized that the root was slowly coming free. He was hanging there, with the tiger above and rocks below, when he noticed a wild strawberry plant. He was just able to reach it and pluck the single berry. He put it into his mouth and said, "Ah, how sweet. How delicious."

The second item is a poem by Dylan Thomas, one that you've probably heard before. I'm thinking of the first two lines:
     Do not go gentle into that good night
     Rage, rage against the dying of the light.

It would seem that Thomas agrees with Jessica Mitford. He is against death. "Rage, rage," he says. Death is something to fight, to refuse, to reject. And yet, it is a good night. How can that be? What does it mean? I don't know. But somehow, he convinces me that it could be true.

The third item I already shared with you - the story from Elyria. I don't know why that story struck me so strongly when I was a teenager, or why it has stayed with me all these years. It seems to say, on the one hand, that death is not so terrible, that going back into the whole is not a bad destination. And on the other hand, how hard it is to give up one's identity, to lose everything that one is and has been. I think that Roger's pain was eased when it was recognized and acknowledged by his friend. But what is the salve she brought? I don't know, but I believe in it. It's a mystery. It's all a mystery.