Explaining death (Part 5): She discovered my mortality

There’s no way to tell what my eventual death will do to my daughter other than to assume an extremely devastating loss (ugh!). While I am as healthy as the proverbial ox and horse and having completely recovered from a nasty case of COVID-19 without hospitalization, it did surprise me that my daughter made an off-hand remark about what will happen to her after I die.

When she was younger, we had spoken about a neighbor’s death from sickness, death of pets, and even the suicide of a childhood friend of mine. Her reactions and emotional state to these events including the attendance at a funeral was not negative. She saw life and death as a natural cycle and mourning was a part of celebrating life which brought the living together as a way to heal.

At the age of 11, my daughter’s knowledge and exposure to this topic has grown to more than just our conversations. She has friends’ grandparents who died; one of her friends was sick with cancer and she never saw her again after chemotherapy. Death in the media is rampant and the pandemic has definitely headlined the inescapable fact that people die every day! Before, she used to feel sadly and would cry; now she still feels sadly, but is aware that I am not invincible.

 

We are all terminal with an undisclosed expiry date. We owe it to ourselves to live as fully as we are able. So if the day ends better than it had started, that’s a day well lived.

 

As morbid as her realization of my mortality, it actually and perhaps not so ironically, brought our relationship closer together. We continue to have good dialog and try to celebrate every moment, good and bad. While there are special occasions like birthdays, graduations and achievements, there are also setbacks and failures and we try to use every moment as a learning opportunity.

My own father died of lung cancer many years ago. Even though we never really got along and I had longed for a healthy relationship with him, I did plan on taking him to see the Great Wall of China one day. But his sickness made travel impossible and so rather than taking him to the monument, I shared photos with him from a time when my ex and I were there during our honeymoon—in effect, I brought the Wall to him. I remember him cracking a smile. It was unexpected since I never spent much time with my father when he was living, yet he gave me his last moments. The next day, he died. Oddly, even though we never left the hospital room, I felt our journey complete.

If the opposite of dying is living, then we owe it to ourselves to live as fully as we are able. While my father was diagnosed with stage-4 cancer and had weeks left, in reality, we are all terminal with an undisclosed expiry date.

I will expect my daughter to have decades beyond my own expiry and as much as I can, I am honest with her and teach her to look for the best part of everything. As much as I try to tell her not to sweat the small stuff, it’s the simple stuff that really matters. We never really know what tomorrow will be like. So if the day ends better than it had started, that’s a day well lived.