On Death and COVID-19

Earlier we discussed what some of the consequences of the Coronavirus would have on our world. Indeed in the few weeks between the last time and now many of the predictions have sadly come true.

I will, as usual, be brief and blunt. We stress under the strain of a broad quarantine. We fret over discomfort and the new normal. We are swimming under a wave that only now begins to break in New York City and will soon sweep much of the United States. That wave is sickness and death.

The American medical system is being tested and whether it passes or fails many people will all die at once.

Who is many people? It is us and those we love. We cannot assume that it is someone else. Someone older and unhealthier. You confuse statistics with destiny at your own peril.

Generally speaking we do not want to die. But there is a fate worse than death. Here is why:

We fear the afterlife. We fear god, the devil or an empty void. This dread is thoroughly explored by Ingmar Bergman in the "7th Seal". While Black and White and in Swedish, the movie is actually very accessible. It follows the straightforward adventures of a knight, Antonius Block, returning home to Sweden after ten violent years in the Crusades. Back home the entire country is overcome by the Bubonic plague or "black death". He encounters Death who summons him to die. Antonius Block stalls him with a game of chess. He attempts to question Death about the identity of God and the meaning of life:

Block: I want to confess as best I can, but my heart is void. The void is a mirror. I see my face and feel loathing and horror. My indifference to men has shut me out. I live now in a world of ghosts, a prisoner in my dreams.

Priest: Yet you do not want to die.

Block: Yes, I do.

[as Block looks away, we see now that the "priest" is actually Death]

Priest/Death: What are you waiting for?

Block: Knowledge.

Block: I want knowledge. Not belief. Not surmise. But knowledge. I want God to put out His hand, show His face, speak to me.

Priest/Death: But He is silent.

Block: I cry to Him in the dark, but there seems to be no one there.

Priest/Death: Perhaps there is no one there.

Block: Then life is a senseless terror. No man can live with Death and know that everything is nothing.

Priest/Death: Most people think neither of Death nor nothingness.

Block: Until they stand on the edge of life and see the Darkness.

The bible provides us assurance that our faith will free us from the darkness:

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

John 3:16

Along with our deeds:

Then I heard a voice from heaven say, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Yes,” says the Spirit, “they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.”

Revelation 14:13

We fear that we will die for nothing, that we will leave behind an unfinished work. Antonius Block decides that he will accept death for whatever it is worth if he can spare a young couple and their infant child who he encounters on his journey. Block will forgo knowing what lies beyond in exchange for knowing his life had been worth living. As David Foster Wallace says: ts not about Life after Death it is about Life before Death. We can make life meaningful but we will suffer greatly if we allow it to pass meaninglessly. Jordan Peterson made this point quoting Solzhenitsyn: there's something worse than death and that's the death of your soul. Peterson continues: "People's relationship with death is rather ambivalent because I mean there are any number of documented and continuing cases of people putting their lives on the line for things they believe in so you know you could also make the case that the absence of meaning is a more terrifying prospect than the possibility of death."

Block: Death visited me this morning. We are playing chess. This respite enables me to perform a vital errand.

Priest/Death: What errand?

Block: My whole life has been a meaningless search. I say it without bitterness or self-reproach. I know it is the same for all. But I want to use my respite for one significant action.

Priest/Death: So you play chess with Death?

Block: He is a skillful tactician, but I have not yet lost one piece.

Once again the Bible provides impetus to the vital errand:

A good name is better than precious ointments (A good name, or a good reputation, is better than expensive perfume); and the day of death is better than the day of birth.

Ecclesiastes 7:1

Buddhist theology shares this outlook. Life is the opportunity to overcome our failings to breath meaning into it as it will pass and end unexpectedly.

Are you oblivious to the sufferings of birth, old age, sickness and death? There is no guarantee that you will survive, even past this very day! The time has come [for you] to develop perseverance in [your] practice. For, at this singular opportunity, you could attain the everlasting bliss [of nirvāṇa]. So now is [certainly] not the time to sit idly, But, starting with [the reflection on] death, you should bring your practice to completion! The moments of our life are not expendable, And the [possible] circumstances of death are beyond imagination. If you do not achieve an undaunted confident security now, What point is there in your being alive, O living creature?

― Padmasambhava, The Tibetan Book of the Dead

If we make our life meaningful we have nothing to fear of death.

If we move beyond what death means for ourselves we better understand our fear for those we leave behind. That is the fate worse than death. For this question we can leave behind high culture and turn to human experience.

How do real people deal with leaving their children behind. That is a nightmare scenario for a parent.

The UK Cancer forum has two short posts by parents diagnosed with terminal cancer. Each post is over three years old, and with no updates, it is safe to say those mothers and fathers succumbed and left behind their children. Below are excerpts:

A Mother: My boys do not really know anything and I just don't know when to tell them. All they know is that I had to have some special medicine to make mummy poorly tummy better and that it might make me sick for a bit. I'm currently on a break from chemo but I have been in pain so they sent me for a scan and found something wrong with my bladder. I have just recently had a biopsy and I am now waiting for the results. I'm thinking that if it is bad news to tell the boys more and maybe tell them that mummy can not be cured,what do you think? How did you word it to your children that you were actually going to die?

A Father: When I explained my situation to my son, I first told him that I'm very poorly and I won't be getting better. I worded it this way because throughout all my treatment, he would keep asking when I was going to get better. I then told him that the doctors couldn't always make everyone better, and that eventually my body will be too tired to fight the disease and I would fall asleep for a long time. I didn't actually use the word "die", it was him that questioned me if I was going to. I then went on to talk about how he would take over me as the man of the house and he had to look after mummy and his sister, I thought this would give him a feeling of importance and stop him getting too focused on me. After telling him I would not be around anymore, we talked about the day when we would all see each other in another place, a nice place, and we would all be a family again. He was upset during this conversation, and he didn't sleep well on that night, but we felt he had to know what was happening, and like I said in my previous post, every so often we bring the subject up so we know he fully understands as much as he can.

This will be the reality for families across the country all at once.

And they will, many of them, suffer without the benefits of modern medical technology. The curve was not flattened in time. It will be for the living to wrestle with a cure, with the pandemic response, with the pandemic’s aftermath, with our economy and with the consequences we have yet to imagine.

For the dead we can offer the hope of solace:

And God shall wipe away each tear from the eyes of them; and death shall no more be, neither mourning, neither crying, neither sorrow, shall (all) be over; which first things went away.