As the month of November goes on, our Book of Remembrance fills up with the names of those who have died but whose memories are still alive. Some surnames sound familiar to me, recalling particular people I was lucky enough to meet; some names are familiar as I know their families; and some names tell me nothing. I recall those I knew, I met, I befriended; and some of them have already passed away. The most vivid memory I have is of a young woman I met many years ago in a local hospital I was visiting regularly as a chaplain. Terminally ill with cancer she was getting weaker and weaker rapidly. Despite her quickly deteriorating health she tried to make jokes every time I visited her. One night I was called to her; she was dying. Standing beside her bed I was blinded by tears involuntarily flowing down my cheeks, and with a lump in my throat, as I tried to minister the sacrament of the sick. Her mother, on the opposite side of the bed, was also crying. The only one who didn’t cry was her. Incredibly weak but fully conscious, she had embraced her fate long before that fateful night, and she was approaching her death with calmness and cheerfulness. Her world ended before the dawn.
Along with the passing years I have become more aware of my own mortality. When we are young, everything seems to be achievable, and nothing seems to be impossible. Any problem seems to be a challenge, not an obstacle. Mortality, death and limitations don’t belong to the world of youth. And then gradually we confront insurmountable difficulties, we realise our own limitations, and become aware of our physical and mental weakness. Imperceptibly, but undoubtedly, I have reached the point when I know that my life will definitely end; and that means I’ve got only a limited span of time ahead. Consequently I try to avoid wasting my precious time on pleasurable, but empty self-indulgence. I want to make sense of the rest of my life regardless of whether it will last for eighty days or eighty years on.
This time of the year, with shortening days, leaves falling off the trees and unpleasant weather, influenced many cultures for centuries, and was a reminder of human flimsiness. Nowadays this autumnal doom and gloom affects us to a lesser extent as, with relatively cheap energy, we can fill our homes with light, warmth and entertainment. With such highly developed technology available to us, we experience a collective mental youth: everything seems to be achievable, and nothing seems to be impossible. Unless a disaster hits, like hurricane Sandy a couple of weeks ago. Deprived of all the convenience of the modern world, we are even more vulnerable and helpless than our ancestors.
The end of the world will certainly come; perhaps in a rather less spectacular way than as described in the Bible. More likely it will come in non-violent way, along with your last breath. We don’t know the moment when it comes – this is our main uncertainty: ‘as for that day or hour, nobody knows it … but [God] the Father.’ There is a question that doesn’t appear in any television quiz show, but your answer to that question can earn you a great prize: ‘How will you be remembered when you’re eventually dead?’ Or another: ‘What will you leave behind?’ The unravelling scandal of a famous TV presenter shows that it might be scorched earth and broken lives. I believe this is not the sort of legacy we crave for.
The young woman I mentioned earlier wasn’t an individual particularly close to me; I don’t even remember her name. But the way she lived her last days and the way she met her death left a distinctive mark in my heart. I’m not as much afraid of death as I am of living a hopeless life. ‘Hurting nobody’ is way too little for me. I’d like to live the life to be well remembered.