DO THE MATH

Breathe in, breathe out, I see the sun is out and leaves are all on the ground: and it’s time to breathe again. If you live to be 90, measuring life by the breath, the breathe-in-breathe-out loop will repeat itself about a billion times, 9 zeros; do the math. Think of Tarzan swinging vine to vine through the jungle; each vine only good for 5 or 6 seconds, then he has to catch another vine, another breath or the machine starts shutting down. If there is no other vine or if he misses, he only has a couple of minutes swinging back and forth to catch another vine, draw another breath or his swinging-breathing journey is over. Discounting modern medicine, it doesn’t leave much room for error. But evolution has made us pretty consistent, pretty proficient at the breathing in and breathing out. Still, you understand the unforgiving aftermath of failure, just for missing one breath, the next one. I was 20-something, studying human anatomy & physiology in college: the simple consequence of missing the next breath got my attention. 

My dad wasn’t complaining, more a resigned lamenting. In his 80’s, the 20th Century was winding down, his friends were dying and all he could do was go to their funerals. He would say to me, “The curse of long life is, losing your friends.” It left him weighing two dilemmas: how to cope with this pattern of loss and the weight of his own inevitable demise. In her own time Margaret Mead observed, and nearly all credible anthropologists agree, end of life rituals (funerals/memorials) are about the only venue where we openly mourn the loss of life. But what we do according to (Mead) that is not so obvious or public is, in the shadow of another’s passing we grieve for the loss of our own life. Mortality lurks out there somewhere but it is no less assured. People can accommodate that grim reality by either denial or distraction and meeting the day's need is a powerful distraction. But deep down in the brain where we can not be trusted with the keys, we understand: Ask not for whom the bell tolls.

I just learned of the passing of a friend. His health had not been good but the news was unexpected. My sympathy and affection for his family are real. I will miss him but I still have things to do. You can’t let grief weigh you down; you can’t be afraid of when or how your journey will end. My friend lived long and well and there is some consolation there. But then in the last year I saw a photo of a drowned refugee, a Syrian child washed up on a Mediterranean beach. The photo made a statement about war and politics. It was news intended to move a person’s sense of humanity. Too far away, not enough in common to go fight another man’s war but I can only speak for me. I’m thinking of my own next breath. You can be young or old, good or bad, it doesn’t matter; do the math. One’s next breath is so important, the one you can’t live without. I’m old enough I don’t take anything for granted. Life is good; I am the old Tarzan, clinging vine to vine, breath to breath, remembering a time when vines had handles, too many to count.