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Day of the Dead
Nov. 1st, 2011 11:01 amIn an incredibly lyrical and moving eulogy for her brother Steve Jobs, the novelist Mona Simpson writes, We all — in the end — die in medias res.
His last words? OH WOW, OH WOW, OH WOW.
What did he see?
Many people describe their near death experiences as a slipstream voyage through a luminous tunnel with some kind of turnstile they weren’t gonna make it through (this time at least) on the other side of which clustered everyone they have ever known and ever loved.
Marybeth, one of two people I actually know who almost died once, described her near death experience as standing on one bank of a vast river and looking across: Her dearly beloved were standing on the other side, dwarfed and blue from distance and perspective, waving at her.
Ben’s mother, Nancy, also came close to dying when she was in her 40s. She didn’t see anything.
What happens physiologically when you’re close to death? Well, your blood gets acidic because you’re oxygen deprived. If low pH is the cause of all those visions though you’d expect diabetics suffering from ketoacidosis to report the same kind of visualizations and as far as I know, they don’t.
“I’m scared,” my mother told me as she lay dying.
I stroked her hair. “It is scary,” I said. “You’re crossing the river. It’s a great broad river. Can you see it?”
She looked startled. “Yes,” she said.
Well, I figured it had to be a river because Marybeth said it was a river and Marybeth is seldom wrong about those kinds of things.
My mother wasn’t dying fast enough for my taste. I’d been sitting by her bedside for over 24 hours, not quite uninterruptedly – I took bathroom breaks, I made coffee and drank it – but this whole dying thing was turning into a bit of an anticlimax. She wasn’t even Cheynes-Stoking, her breathing was soft and regular. She lay there in her white nightgown with her hair spread around her, looking like a veritable Lady of Shallot – all she lacked was a calla lily to hold in her loosely clutched hands. The process of dying was making her look younger somehow, her skin was translucent and it seemed almost to glow.
I figured she would go on like this for days so I left. I wanted to drive back down to Monterey, check in on my kids, sleep in my own bed for a few minutes.
Twenty minutes later I got The Phone Call.
At first I was terribly angry. I was so prepared to be the dutiful daughter! But she wouldn’t even let me do that!
It wasn’t until yeas later that I realized, No, of course she couldn’t die with you in the room! You were her tie to the living. And you were too strong – you wouldn’t let her go.
###
We dodged the bullet on the Big Snowstorm It sidled in 100 miles to the east and left us alone. It’s been cold, but of course nowhere near as cold as it’s going to get. I suppose it’s my imagination but the chill in the air seems to magnify resolution – I feel as though I can see for miles and miles and miles.
I carved pumpkins, stuck votive candles in them. Handed out candy. Personally I seem to be on another one of my anorexic binges. On Sunday, I had horrible stomach pains. I couldn’t figure out what they were until finally it dawned on me: Oh, of course! They’re hunger pains! I literally hadn’t eaten for two days. When RTT’s at his dad’s I tend not to eat. It’s nothing conscious. I’m certainly not obsessive about my appearance. Eating just seems like a colossal drag.
Probably should start riding my bike again even though it’s cold. Throughout the summer I was riding a minimum of 16 miles a day, and the exercise fastened my spirit to my body somehow. I was better about eating and sleeping on a schedule.
###
Dreamed about Erica last night. Though I don’t usually dream about my own life or people I actually know, there are two great exceptions to that rule: I dream a lot about Barbara Angell and I dream a lot about Erica. They’re both archetypes for me.
Erica was my tai kwon do instructor. Gorgeous, blonde, imperturbable. She married up through an interesting series of husbands and eventually ended up as the mistress to a billionaire who has serious political connections. We were lovers back in the days when I was sexually adventurous, but our rhythms were always very different – she kisses like a flitting hummingbird, I kiss like a slowly opening flower. You can deduce what you like from those descriptions. Also her skin was kind of dry and no amount of emollient seemed to soften it up. This meant it was really hard to tell when she was excited – she didn’t seem to lubricate very much, so you had to go by flush and enlargement. Technical details! But I digress.
In the dream, Erica and I were going scuba diving together. She was wearing a very sexy neoprene wet suit; I was wearing a very dowdy looking one-piece bathing suit. I can’t scuba dive, of course, so I was wondering how I was going to go about faking the ability effectively – a lot seemed to ride on that.
“The EU’s going to fall apart,” Erica told me. “Economies of scale don’t work when it comes to nations. Western Europe should have stuck to a smaller, more exclusive economic alliance.”
“When?” I asked.
“January 2012. When that happens, the Depression becomes official.”
Yes, I do have dreams like this! A lot of dreams like this! The predictions are seldom if ever correct, however.
“Followed by a world war,” Erica added dreamily – but by then I was waking up. Pitch black though it was 6:30am. I hate waking up in the dark unless it’s three in the morning! Struggled out of bed, shuffled into the kitchen – coffee and breakfast for RTT, coffee for me. Long list of Must Do’s to accomplish today. But the dream left me in the realm of gloom and doom. Understandably.
His last words? OH WOW, OH WOW, OH WOW.
What did he see?
Many people describe their near death experiences as a slipstream voyage through a luminous tunnel with some kind of turnstile they weren’t gonna make it through (this time at least) on the other side of which clustered everyone they have ever known and ever loved.
Marybeth, one of two people I actually know who almost died once, described her near death experience as standing on one bank of a vast river and looking across: Her dearly beloved were standing on the other side, dwarfed and blue from distance and perspective, waving at her.
Ben’s mother, Nancy, also came close to dying when she was in her 40s. She didn’t see anything.
What happens physiologically when you’re close to death? Well, your blood gets acidic because you’re oxygen deprived. If low pH is the cause of all those visions though you’d expect diabetics suffering from ketoacidosis to report the same kind of visualizations and as far as I know, they don’t.
“I’m scared,” my mother told me as she lay dying.
I stroked her hair. “It is scary,” I said. “You’re crossing the river. It’s a great broad river. Can you see it?”
She looked startled. “Yes,” she said.
Well, I figured it had to be a river because Marybeth said it was a river and Marybeth is seldom wrong about those kinds of things.
My mother wasn’t dying fast enough for my taste. I’d been sitting by her bedside for over 24 hours, not quite uninterruptedly – I took bathroom breaks, I made coffee and drank it – but this whole dying thing was turning into a bit of an anticlimax. She wasn’t even Cheynes-Stoking, her breathing was soft and regular. She lay there in her white nightgown with her hair spread around her, looking like a veritable Lady of Shallot – all she lacked was a calla lily to hold in her loosely clutched hands. The process of dying was making her look younger somehow, her skin was translucent and it seemed almost to glow.
I figured she would go on like this for days so I left. I wanted to drive back down to Monterey, check in on my kids, sleep in my own bed for a few minutes.
Twenty minutes later I got The Phone Call.
At first I was terribly angry. I was so prepared to be the dutiful daughter! But she wouldn’t even let me do that!
It wasn’t until yeas later that I realized, No, of course she couldn’t die with you in the room! You were her tie to the living. And you were too strong – you wouldn’t let her go.
We dodged the bullet on the Big Snowstorm It sidled in 100 miles to the east and left us alone. It’s been cold, but of course nowhere near as cold as it’s going to get. I suppose it’s my imagination but the chill in the air seems to magnify resolution – I feel as though I can see for miles and miles and miles.
I carved pumpkins, stuck votive candles in them. Handed out candy. Personally I seem to be on another one of my anorexic binges. On Sunday, I had horrible stomach pains. I couldn’t figure out what they were until finally it dawned on me: Oh, of course! They’re hunger pains! I literally hadn’t eaten for two days. When RTT’s at his dad’s I tend not to eat. It’s nothing conscious. I’m certainly not obsessive about my appearance. Eating just seems like a colossal drag.
Probably should start riding my bike again even though it’s cold. Throughout the summer I was riding a minimum of 16 miles a day, and the exercise fastened my spirit to my body somehow. I was better about eating and sleeping on a schedule.
Dreamed about Erica last night. Though I don’t usually dream about my own life or people I actually know, there are two great exceptions to that rule: I dream a lot about Barbara Angell and I dream a lot about Erica. They’re both archetypes for me.
Erica was my tai kwon do instructor. Gorgeous, blonde, imperturbable. She married up through an interesting series of husbands and eventually ended up as the mistress to a billionaire who has serious political connections. We were lovers back in the days when I was sexually adventurous, but our rhythms were always very different – she kisses like a flitting hummingbird, I kiss like a slowly opening flower. You can deduce what you like from those descriptions. Also her skin was kind of dry and no amount of emollient seemed to soften it up. This meant it was really hard to tell when she was excited – she didn’t seem to lubricate very much, so you had to go by flush and enlargement. Technical details! But I digress.
In the dream, Erica and I were going scuba diving together. She was wearing a very sexy neoprene wet suit; I was wearing a very dowdy looking one-piece bathing suit. I can’t scuba dive, of course, so I was wondering how I was going to go about faking the ability effectively – a lot seemed to ride on that.
“The EU’s going to fall apart,” Erica told me. “Economies of scale don’t work when it comes to nations. Western Europe should have stuck to a smaller, more exclusive economic alliance.”
“When?” I asked.
“January 2012. When that happens, the Depression becomes official.”
Yes, I do have dreams like this! A lot of dreams like this! The predictions are seldom if ever correct, however.
“Followed by a world war,” Erica added dreamily – but by then I was waking up. Pitch black though it was 6:30am. I hate waking up in the dark unless it’s three in the morning! Struggled out of bed, shuffled into the kitchen – coffee and breakfast for RTT, coffee for me. Long list of Must Do’s to accomplish today. But the dream left me in the realm of gloom and doom. Understandably.
