Hither, Yon and the Great Beyond

We went on a grand adventure to San Francisco and parts south last weekend; Mary and I and fourteen friends, all vocal musicians of the best kind, took the cream of Badarak choral compositions and sang the hell out of them. We did a (fairly) formal concert in Los Altos at Matt Broadbent's Congregational church, and then the next afternoon sang Evensong in Grace Cathedral, nestled in the middle of the jewels of stained glass light and the lively but forgiving Gothic acoustics of the place.

We made some wonderful re-connections (including with an old flame of mine -- now THAT was something, and it was entirely pleasant, much to our mutual surprise), and some good new ones. The trip was planned really pretty well if I do say so, and those details which could have proven disastrous had they been mishandled worked themselves out by the grace of a merciful God and the confident guidance of Marco Place (whom I have officially adopted as one of my long lost brothers, merely born of a different mother).

Just as I was beginning to get my feet under me again, was physically able to watch a harrowing 5th ALCS game till the final out, then sleep the sleep of the accomplished and the just, we received some sad and shocking news: A friend and neighbor of ours, who was diagnosed with ALS a few weeks ago, took his own life last night. It seems he and his wife had talked about it, had each and both considered the kind of life that remained for him -- and for her -- and had made this decision. He went to a local abandoned swimming pool while his wife was running errands in town, and put a gun in his mouth.

Now, I have come to understand, over sixty-four years of paying close attention, that dying is not necessarily the worst thing to happen to anybody. It may be the worst thing to those left behind, one of those shockers that life hands us to get our attention, to urge a sharp left or right turn in our own journey, but the guy that actually goes on is probably better off. Certainly in this case I think he is; and his wife, a strong woman with a healthy sense of proportion and basic good humor, likewise. She will make the most of the next five years, which otherwise would be a living hell, literally, and honor her husband by so doing.

That does NOT mean, however, that we have to like it. My oldest and wisest teacher stresses this, over and over again; we must accept the clear and conscious choices of other people, and bless their lives, but nowhere is it written that we don't suffer the shock, nor mourn the loss, nor share as best we can the periodic tumults of grief and anger endured by those closest to him. I DON'T like it, I don't like the FACT of a disease that puts someone through such exquisite and prolonged torture while keeping the mind entirely aware, conscious and sensible of every single inexorably diminishing physical faculty. The idea of ALS must make anyone with a ghost of claustrophobia shrink in horror, to be entombed alive in an entirely unresponsive, racking body.

I have to say I would probably do the same thing.