Dark musings

Yesterday afternoon it was warm, verging on hot. And yesterday evening it rained heavily. So, in the dark hours of the morning the windless humidity woke me, and I drifted in half-sleep.

Probably inspired by the episode of ''House'' we'd watched before going to bed -- for the first time that we can remember, a patient actually died -- but I started thinking about my experiences with death, compared to how it's portrayed on t.v.

I was lucky enough to keep all my grandparents until my late twenties (around 28?). And, except for formal funerals -- which are ritualized and sanitized -- I hadn't had any direct exposure to death. But then within a three or four year period I lost my younger sister and two grandmothers. One grandmother I saw waste away, but wan't actually there when she died; but I was there when my sister died, and visited the other grandmother's house within a half hour of her death.


Compared to t.v.:

(1) People with terminal diseases don't actually say something wise or touching, then close their eyes and die. Instead, they lose coherence; then consciousness; and then a few days later, they actually die.

(2) Extrapolating somewhat: If someone gets shot, they don't just go ''argh'' and fall down dead; it takes a while.

(3) If you touch someone you know after they've been dead for even a half hour, they're cold. Too cold. So when someone dies in surgery, and the spouse comes over and kisses them afterwards -- I'm not sure if I could do that. It's too clearly vacant -- an empty shell.


But, on a lighter note: Compared to how childbirth takes place on t.v. (and in most movies!) -- it does not just take five or ten minutes of labor and the kid pops out. And unless you get stuck in really bad traffic, you will know, loooong before the kid pops out, that labor has started. Pretty unlikely you'll have to pull the car over and deliver your own kid.


The things you think about lying awake in bed at the wrong end of whatever-o'clock in the morning.


--GG