Death & Life

Certain passages of the book I'm reading, Paul Adams's "The Rainaldi Quartet," are quite contemplative, and stir some of my own thoughts in regards to the past, present and future. A passage I just finished reading has to do with the protagonist attending the funeral of an old friend. The event gives him -- as most funerals do -- a flood of emotion and of memories of times gone by, of an emboldened appreciation of the life he's shared with the now departed friend, of his own late wife, and of the people he's known in general. Reading this, my thoughts drifted (as they sometimes do) to my father, who died some ten-and-a-half years ago of pancreatic cancer.

My father's death -- or, should I say, his process of dying -- was my first real exposure to the death of someone close. True, there had been a few funerals of family members before this, but they weren't people I had a tremendously deep and complicated relationship with. Also, many of their deaths were either sudden, or due to old age. My dad was only 52 when he died, and the last 10 months of his life were so very difficult for him, and for everyone.

I remember visiting my dad during that last year, either at his home in Springfield, or at my grandmother's when he would come to visit Champaign, and at times I'd be enraptured by the fact of his life -- that he was a living being that, I knew, would cease to be a living being within the span of a few months. This may sound odd, or morbid, but this is one of the facts that terminal illness brings us. True, we are all going to die. We are all living beings that will one day cease to be living. But terminal illness so often brings that reality into sharp, clear, and impending focus.

There was an occasion, during one of the visits with dad, when my younger half-brother (who was two at the time) was amusing himself by going up to the end of the couch and pulling-off my dad's socks. It took him a little while, a number of tugs, but soon off came the first sock and then, after a few more tugs, off came the second. The removal of the socks was followed by a healthy dose of giggling from little Dylan, amused by such a simple thing, as children often are.

I found myself looking at my dad's foot during this moment -- his bare, unsheathed foot, pulsing with the life force of blood and living tissue -- and I remember thinking, 'It's a part of him, and it's alive. He's alive. Right now. At this moment. I need to remember this, because it won't always be this way. In the not too distant future, this will no longer be something I can witness, my father being alive.' I remember looking him up and down during that visit, quietly watching him as everyone else was watching a show on television. At one point he had to lay stomach-down on the floor, to lessen some of the pain, and I watched him then. It was paramount for me that night to remember him alive.

And I do.

Of course, there are other memories, plenty of them. Like everything else and everyone else in life, there are the good memories and the bad. But that's what life's all about, right? I remember the bike rides dad and I used to go on, the times we used to enjoy watching the same television show, the times he would take me to Taffie's and Merry Ann's Diner, and we'd sit on the stools up at the bar, and he'd converse with the staff like they were old friends (perhaps they were). The bad memories are there, too, but (thankfully) come to mind with much less frequency than the good ones.

Much like the protagonist in the book I'm reading, what I find most disheartening about loved ones that have passed away, whether they by my father, my grandmothers, my friend Tracy, or anyone else, is that the ability to communicate with them is gone forever. I won't hear their voices, or see their smiles, or be able to share something with them. They were, however, people who lived, and who (lucky for me) were a part of my life for however long or short a time, and the benefits of that cannot be measured.

The best thing about all of this reminiscing? It makes me appreciate the people that are still in my life that much more.

Literary Pursuits

I've been experiencing a re-awakening interest in reading, of late. This is in no small part due to the excellent and prolific writing of Peter Lovesey, whose series of Peter Diamond, Hen Mallin, and one-off books have kept me engrossed so many of these cold winter nights (not to mention morning and late-afternoon bus rides).

It was a pleasure to have fall into this new, pleasing schedule of reading for pleasure a new novel by my favorite author, P.D. James. I first heard of its forthcoming release nearly a year before it appeared on bookshelves, the anticipation steadily building as the months left the calendar. Finally, one evening when I walked through the doors at Borders, there it was, patiently waiting.

The story was, in many ways, a standard James mystery novel. The first 90 pages or so were a build-up of character introduction and intrigue, capped-off by the first murder. We're then introduced to the main protagonist, Adam Dalgliesh, and his team of police detectives. The book was good -- very good -- and was a pleasure to read.

One of the main themes of "The Private Patient" was that of love. It was at times reflected somewhat stiltedly, for reading James's descriptions of characters in love is not unlike reading a centuries-old work by Jane Austen. Nevertheless, the meaning, the impact, isn't reduced. Indeed, I found this novel to resonate on such an emotional level with me, that it now ranks as one of my all-time favorite books.

It is rare, I think, for a literary work of fiction to strike an overly-emotional chord. Perhaps I haven't read enough books, but they would seem to be a more intellectually-stimulating form of entertainment than, say, film or television. Indeed, I believe film-critic Roger Ebert has said something akin to this on occasion. It's not unheard of for me to cry during a movie. It's an unusual book that will move me to tears. For that, I will always relish and remember "The Private Patient."

I'm now reading "The Rainaldi Quartet" by Paul Adam. It's a good little mystery so far, but it doesn't hold a candle to the latest work by P.D. James. Then again, very few mysteries do.