The Day of One's Death

Last week, on the evening of December 27, NBC's Nightly News listed 58 notable people who have died in the past year.  (See the list at the end of this blog entry.)

I would have included two more names:  Earl Scruggs (musician) and Doc Watson (guitarist, songwriter & singer).

The next morning NBC's Today Show reported that two more influential people had died:  Norman Schwarztopf (Gulf War commander) and Fontella Bass (singer).

It is good to reflect on the deaths of people who have somehow touched our lives  It forces us to think about the qualities that we want to see live on.  The world is constantly changing.  The direction of world events is determined entirely by the living…whoever they are, and whatever values they hold.

According to the Bible, Israel's King Solomon wrote that "the day of one's death is better than the day of one's birth."  (Ecclesiastes 7:1, New American Standard Bible © 1995)

I believe that.  Because, in 100 years, it will not matter when I was born, or when I died.  No matter what those dates were, I will be long gone.  What will matter will be any way that I have touched or inspired someone who is then alive.  That makes me think about what is really important in my life.

What do I want to leave behind?

Eventually, that is the only question that matters.

In Chuck Palahniuk's dark-humor novel, Diary, one character said, "We all die.  The goal isn't to live forever, the goal is to create something that will."

I haven't read that book, but maybe I should.  Quotes that I have read make me realize that, in my own life, I have often feared the wrong things:

• “You have endless ways you can commit suicide without dying dying.”

It seems to me that sometimes people become so hurt that they stop living, and choose to simply exist.  Fear of pain ends their life...sometimes decades before they stop breathing.

For others, living is delayed until they find the courage to allow themselves to live:

• “Many people have to really suffer before they can risk doing what they love.”

I want to live until the day that I stop breathing.  And, when that day comes, I hope I will somehow have inspired someone to keep important values alive.


NBC's list of "some of the notable names that departed this past year":

• Whitney Houston (singer & actress)
• Dave Brubeck (pianist & composer)
• Michael Clarke Duncan (actor)
• Ernest Borgnine (actor)
• Charles Durning (actor)
• Kathryn Joosten (actress)
• Tony Scott (director)
• Richard Dawson (host & actor)
• Larry Hagman (actor)
• Jerry Nelson (actor & puppeteer)
• Phyllis Diller (comedienne & actress)
• Vidal Sassoon (hairstylist & entrepreneur)
• Andy Griffith (actor)
• Jack Klugman (actor)
• Sherman Hemsley (actor)
• Nora Ephron (essayist & screenwriter)
• Etta James (singer)
• Kitty Wells (singer)
• Fontella Bass (singer & songwriter)
• Carlos Fuentes (author)
• Gore Vidal (author)
• Ray Bradbury (author)
• Thomas Kinkade (artist)
• Maurice Sendak (author & illustrator)
• Marvin Hamlisch (composer)
• Robert Sherman (songwriter)
• Hal David (lyricist)
• Donna Summer (singer & songwriter)
• Robin Gibb (singer & songwriter)
• Don Cornelius (host & producer)
• Dick Clark (host & producer)
• Alex Karras (football player & actor)
• Gary Carter (baseball player & broadcaster)
• Johnny Pesky (baseball player & broadcaster)
• Joe Paterno (football coach)
• Hector Camacho (boxer)
• Marvin Miller (baseball union leader)
• Rodney King
• Sun Myung Moon (reverend)
• Jenni Rivera (singer & songwriter)
• Ravi Shankar (sitar musician & composer)
• Davy Jones (actor, singer & jockey)
• Andy Williams (singer & songwriter)
• Neil Armstrong (astronaut)
• Sally Ride (astronaut)
• Daniel Inouye (senator)
• Arlen Specter (senator)
• George McGovern (senator & presidential nominee)
• Robert Bork (supreme court nominee)
• Norodom Sihanouk (Cambodian king)
• Charles Colson (special counsel to the president)
• Russell Means (Oglala Sioux activist)
• J. Christopher Stevens (ambassador)
• Mike Wallace (journalist)
• Judith Crist (film critic)
• Helen Gurley Brown (magazine editor & author)
• Arthur O. Sulzberger (newspaper publisher)
• Anthony Shadid (journalist)