A list, as in the last post, isn't satisfying when there's no ending, no completion.  Life is like a list (cue music from Forest Gump). Like all human activities, indeed all natural activities, there is no shape, no meaning without a beginning, a middle, and an ending.  The idea of "eternal life" seems to me not only an oxymoron, but a concept that is unimaginable and, if it could be imagined, undesirable.  "Love calls us to things of this world," wrote Richard Wilbur.  We have them for a while, and knowing that we won't have them forever provides a welcome rhythm to our lives.  So reason #4 for not fearing death is that without that ending, life would have no meaning. 

Steve Jobs, in his search for a spiritual lesson, said that he didn't want to think of life as like a computer with an on/off switch.  It's not the prettiest of metaphors, but, as all of us know from experience, there is that moment when the switch flips to off.  Perhaps more accurately, life is like a rheostat: in the on position, some moments are bright, others dimmer.  I try as best I can to keep the light shining brightly.  One of the frustrating aspects of cancer is that the disease and the chemo and the side effects often dim the lights when I'd like them bright.  Eventually, though, there will be an ending, the switch will descend to the off position:  "Put out the light and then put out the light." 

In my all-time favorite novel, The Sound and the Fury, Jason Compson is fond of cynical descriptions of the cycle of life.  One he does in Latin:  Non fui.  Sum.  Fui.  Non sum.  I was not.  I am.  I was.  I am not.  His cynicism is sometimes amusing, but it's also destructive.  If we think of that series, though, not as something to despair over but as simply the way it is, the sequence suggests the beginning, middle, and ending of our journey.  The world endured for millions of years when I was not; it will endure when I am not. 

. . .

Yesterday was a full day, and by 4 p.m., I was pooped.  Mohamed had homework, and I hated to leave Frederic alone with nothing to do, so I pulled out a bunch of DVDs of French films.  Most were classics (Renoir, Truffaut, Blier) that we had both seen, but one was a French-Candian film, Les Invasions barbares, which I had seen but Frederic had not.  It won the Oscar for best foreign film and is described on the case as a "funny look" at clashing cultures.  The story centers on a university professor who is dying of cancer, and for the first hour, it is funny.  I watched that much with Frederic, but then couldn't stay awake so went upstairs to take a nap (the rheostat was definitely dimmed).  The last part of the movie, however, is not funny, and at the end the professor dies.  When Mohamed came to wake me, he was worried about Frederic, whom he had found sitting in the near dark with no TV, no music, no book, and no mots croises (I can't figure out how to insert accents in this program).  Frederic was beside himself with sadness because of the end of the film and guilt because he had chosen it.  He was convinced that I had stopped watching because I couldn't face the movie's end.  He had a hard time believing that I like the movie and was simply too exhausted to watch the last part.  But I do, and I was.  The movie had its inevitable and natural ending.