THOUGHTS ON DEATH BY JEAN JONES

My wife told me that our neighbor died during the night,
we weren't sure where,
he was staying at a nursing home,
and yesterday, at work,
I found the obituary of my Aunt Lucille,
lived up to the ripe old age
of 92,
outlived all her siblings
including my dad,
outlived her husband
and even one of her sons.
She was born 1917, and like many
of her generation,
the Depression and World War II
changed the way she looked at things.
But even her
in her ripe old age
is dead, and all this
made me think of that line from
"Little Buddha:"  "What is impermanence?"
"See these people, all around you?  In 100 years,
they won't be here.  That is impermanence."
Do we live our lives knowing we are impermanent?
Buddhism not only teaches that, it states we are interdependent.
Everyone's needs are connected with one another.  H
ow are we to live in an impermanent
and interdependent universe?  The Buddhists teach people to be kind to one another.
Christians say love your neighbor as God loves you.
Christianity teaches not to be afraid of death
for Jesus conquered death at the cross.
Dying is going home in Christianity
but not many Christians I've met feel that.
Death is an unknown fear.
I'm frightened by it,
mainly because I don't know what's there.
I suspect there is nothing there,
a vast void,
so I run away
from it
as much as possible.
Perhaps I and many others
live our lives
like the characters
of an Edgar Allan Poe Story,
"The Masque of the Red Death."
While the Red Death raged outside,
people inside
Prospero's castle acted as if
there was no such thing.
There were continuous parties
and celebrations.
Then the clock would sound,
and everything would stop
until the clock
stopped tolling.
One night,
the Red Death appeared,
disguised,
and killed everyone there in the castle.
Are we like those revelers,
pretending death does not exist?  I wonder.

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