I remember well describing my new girlfriend to my mates. (That girlfriend was to become my wife of over 50 years). “She’s a gorgeous blond, with a terrific personality, and a more-than-ample bosom.” I used to joke about when it was time for me to die, I would like to suffocate myself between those lovely boobs.
With some chump (me) coming up with this title for this week’s blog, it got me thinking back to that idea, and you know what, I still think it’s a good plan, well, compared to dying in other places..
Let’s be fair, dying is probably a really shitty experience, so where better to finally pass away than in a comfy, warm, tender, loving environment. It has a lot going for it. Imagine your last breaths being so titillating……
Where would I choose to die?
When Roger suggested this topic, I got hooked immediately. Yes, really, where?
Let’s rule out the chance of life when I have no option to choose it. This may happen and I will never know it.
Otherwise, I must think about it.
I beg to help Joseph Brodsky, a poet and essayist, my famous compatriot and a Nobel Prize in literature in 1987. His style was dense, ironic, and philosophical — often blending classical references, metaphysical themes, and a kind of detached melancholy. Brodsky loved wine, women, and life. He had a very strong character, too. He also had an incomparable feeling of how to put feelings and emotions in words.
He once put it this way in his famous verse:
If you’re born to live within an empire’s reach,
Choose a distant province by the sea;
Remember: all of this has been before.
Humility’s just pride in softer speech,
Stupidity — a shelter from the sore,
And even music cannot heal the breach
That opens in the heart — the wound of being free.
Well, I hope, if I could control it at some point in the future, to sit in a house by the sea, listen to the sound of waves and wind, look up into the blue sky, drink some good wine, think about the years passed by…
And to die amongst this beauty.
Where would I choose to die?
The entire topic of death is a Rorschach test. I intend to fail my test miserably. Have you read about how so-and-so died with dignity? I intend to scream and cry, I’m going to embarrass everyone except myself. Even toddlers will think I’m a cry baby: “Yo, man up!”
Most people in industrialized countries die in hospitals. I understand most lifelong healthcare expense takes place in our last few months. The US does have a good health care system, it’s just that nobody can afford it. The law is written in such a way that the hospital must provide care, regardless of the ability to pay. So, folks are forced to run up these giant bills with no possibility of repayment. You will not be surprised to learn that medical bills are the number one cause of bankruptcy in the US. It’s a stupid system designed to help the one-percent achieve maximum money extraction. America is the only industrialized country on the planet with this ridiculous, stupid, dumb healthcare system.
Most of us don’t get to choose where and how we die. We are just going about our business and we have a heart attack or stroke or whatever and get rushed to the nearest Emergency Room. Kinda’ a crappy way to go: on a table, under crazy bright lights running up six-figure bill your spouse cannot pay. I like my plan better.