Everybody has to die someday, some way.
I've known that since my great grandma died,
When I was three.
Three years is such a tiny piece of eternity.
But I was precocious: In some ways, even a prodigy.
And I began to read about death.
Theories and speculations; and sure and certain assertions,
Of a great multiplicity of contrary views and beliefs.
Not any address well the mystery of our sufferings and griefs.
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Even as a child, I was chilled
To think I would someday be buried.
The alternative--to be burned to charred bone bits and ashes--
I had not learned of as an option--not yet.
That's even scarier for me.   Burning in a fire, like getting cancer,
Is one of my most terrifying phobias.
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And years go by, one by one.
They become the last little topmost sliver
Of Deep Time, that swallowed dinosaurs; Deep Time,
Like a great cup of wine, with millions of living bubbles,
Popping one by one.
Everybody has to die someday, some way.
I've known that for most of my life.
I always knew it was true, and that there was nothing I could do.
Just to live life and make the most of time, and make the best of life.
And to help others when I can, as long as I can.
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Even great galaxies collide,
On a very slow slippery time-ride.
How many stars have shined and then, finally, ended?
In Deep Time.
When I wept over finding out my cancer was going to kill me,
I was told with what seemed to be disdain:
"Everybody is going to die."
He thought I had not known that.
But I
Had known it years ago--probably long before he.
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Fear of death, and knowing death happens, is a very early memory.
But there are so many ways and times and means to die;
And there are varied numbers of years for life's blessings to supply.
I hoped and I had reason to think that I would die peacefully,
Of extreme old age, and with little or no pain.
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We are not all under the exact same sentence, or even close.
Some die full of years, surrounded by loved ones, dying easefully.
Others die in wracking wretched pain, over weeks or months or years,
With bodily functions a slow difficult sorrow, awry and gross.
So many pleasant ways, and then so many torturous ways to depart.
When some say we are all under the same sentence, where is their brain?
Where their thinking mind, to speak so thoughtlessly?  Where their heart?
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I have pity for the deaths of all, no matter how and when.
Death does not justify death. 
A universal death sentence defines the human condition.
That's why we are called mortals.  The ancient Greeks had,
Among other names for humans, the plural word thannatoi:
The deathful ones. 
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Someday soon, lifespans will be extended,
And possibilities and dreams and love will be expanded.  Yet even then,
Even if they get to live a thousand years--oh, to have been in that time!--
Death will follow for each and all, the final ending.
Yet never say it is the same sentence for all, the falsity of that is clear.
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The fact that all shall someday die
Does not mean that we are all under the exact same sentence.
First of all, some live only a few fleet years;
Others live to be seventy, eighty, or ninety, or even a hundred or more.
People who are now age eighty-two, have a better chance of another three,
And peaceful pleasant years, than the chance that falls to me. 
Or that Brian had much medical hope to see.
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But beyond the different number of years, there are the different ways
That Chronos hunts us down and slays.
In China, people used to be executed by the Death of a Thousand Cuts.
The horrible practice was to cut a living person, to slice off pieces;
Maximizing the pain.  My mind was scarred with this knowledge
When I was sixteen.  Timothy McVeigh died quite another way.
A needle's pain; needles, which  I feel stab me day after day.
He did not suffer the same sentence as those poor Chinese victims
Of monstrous inhumanity's vicious dictums.
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Now I face a death like that death, the Death of a Thousand Cuts.
Cancer can be like that.  Mine will be.
I cannot kill myself to avoid it; suicide chills me worse than any death.
But the death I must endure will come with much pain.
It is simply a fact, that my life is going to be wracked from me.
The kind and stage of cancer I have is painful, now eating my bones.
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Yet we all do have to die some day.  I've always had sympathy for that.
I have always had compassion for my fellow and sister people.
I have compassion also for animals, who suffer too, and whose deaths loom.
Now, knowing that I cannot grow old, and die peacefully in a painless bed,
I find so many people lack all human feeling for me and the others here.
Death is used to justify death.  We late-stage cancer victims are all
On an assembly-line, a moving belt that carries us to doom.
As we move by, we are given shots, blood draws, pills, surgeries,
First line to last line of chemotherapy; then nothing, or hospice;
And our future is like a cloud of inescapable miseries.
I feel for my fellow and sister cancer victims most of all. 
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Fate or God or chance decreed, that before my own life bled,
I had to watch the life of my beloved best friend bleed.
My greatest grief and sorrow will always be for Brian.
He was not under the same death sentence as most; he suffered more
Than anyone could deserve;
And what he deserved, was to live and be happy.

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Written by Michael LP, aka MLP
aka PoetWithCancer, aka PWC, aka (thanks to Luna Marie) Mr. Poet
Written on Sunday, July 17, 2011  5:48 pm PDT
104 degrees F.   Humidity: 2%    Forecast: overcast
Copyright (C) 2011 by Michael LP.  All rights reserved
(I still copyright my writings, for my estate)