Death Be Not Proud

Task 9, February 22 to February 29

"Death is not the opposite of life, it is part of it". Hakuri Murakamki

I know the moment that I got old. The exact moment. I was working in NYC, at Fuse network, which was headquartered on 7th avenue, right across the street from Madison Square Garden. I was hired to create a daily music news show and news gathering infrastructure. Fuse News, as it came to be called, was hosted by Ashanti and Alexa Chung and Jack Osbourne, all talented people, but unsuited for news anchoring, which was my fault because I cast it. The whole channel was bankrolled by Madison Square Garden Media, a multi-tentacled media monster with a rabidly insane CEO. The four years I spent there was a prolonged, sharp-elbowed, mosh pit experience and I barely escaped with my dignity attached.

But I digress...

I came to know that I was old because of an incident that happened one day when I left our building to grab some lunch at a nearby bodega. It was a blustery day, rainy and cold, much like everyday in New York when I was there. I shivered and tried to shield my eyes from the elements and started down the street. I spotted a deli and made my way toward the entry door. In front of me was a pregnant woman--a very pregnant woman, probably 10 months pregnant--who reached the door a second before I did. She turned around, saw me and said, "after you sir" and held the door for me. I mumbled "thank you..." and went inside. I was shocked and embarrassed, so much so that I no longer wanted lunch.

Later that day, sitting alone in my office, I grudgingly acknowledged the truth: I was getting old, and it got me to think about death.

A while after that I decided to go visit my parents. At the cemetery.

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Not a fun place. It's kind of humbling, actually. My mom and dad are buried next to each other beneath an oak tree. In front of my dad's grave is a small glass vase and an American flag, symbolic of his short stint in the U.S. Army. My mother's grave has no adornment. Just her name and dates.

I stared at the graves for a while. I tried to conjure up my mother's voice, but it's gone. And the only image of my dad still stored in my memory is him an old man, ravaged by Alzheimers.

After a while I continued to meander around. I stopped in front of this one grave...the tombstone read: RANDALL XXXXX, 1974-1995. He was 21 when he died. That's young. When you're 21 you're at life's front door.

Below his name there was a poem. "My candle burns at both ends, it will not last the night, but ah my foes and oh my friends, it gives a lovely light.

It made me cry. I cried because Randall was only 21 when he died. I was cried for my parents, too. And after a while, after I stopped crying, I felt better.

I went home and looked up the poem. It was written by Edna St. Vincent Millay. And she wrote it 104 years ago.

TASK:

Take a road trip. To a cemetery. Walk around. Read the inscriptions on the headstones, and try to picture them in your mind's eye.

Then go home and open your notebook and think up an epitaph for your headstone. Actually it doesn't have to be original. It can be a poem, or a phrase, or a line from a movie.

Try it. It won't kill you, I promise.