Thoughts on Death – A New Beginning

So, as noted on my Facebook post last night, I learned of the passing of my old college roommate and friend Jeffrey Soderberg yesterday morning.  I will not repeat all of that post here, except to say this is a man that was full of life; life in abundance, and I am glad to have known him.

This morning however, I have been mulling over the meaning of death for me both emotionally and spiritually and I feel the need to script it out to have a way to share some of this inward dialogue outwardly, especially for those that know me and wonder what goes on in that calcium chamber between my ears.

Let me begin with my first dramatic encounter with death.  When I was young, my parents, before I was aware, had adopted from my Aunt Carla and Uncle Bob in Bridgeport a male pet dog named Brandy.  From my own experience, I can say every boy ought to grow up with a dog (not trying to be gender exclusive, I just cannot speak to the other side).  Being the older brother, Brandy was often my playmate and run-around mate, at least as early as I remember, until my little brother was able to be a running buddy as well (Donald, born 3 years and 6 hours apart, thus sharing the same birthday, talk about superior family planning).  Well, after a time, this not so young dog ended up having some health issues, to the point that he burst a blood vessel in his ear.  My parents, after having paid for one surgery on the ear to correct the problem, were not in a position financially to do a second (Dad being a full time Industrial Arts teacher and summer/spare time contractor, and Mom being a stay at home mother, who worked for the teachers union part-time once we both were in school).  Thus, they opted to put Brandy down.  Timing, however, could not have been worse, as it was the day or two before my (our) Birthday; what a present.  Needless to say, I was a wreck, I remember bellowing and crying for a long while.  I was angry with my parents, blamed God for this, and thought that if I had only been able to be there I could have worked a miracle (being the son of a modern day carpenter, albeit not Jewish, did occasionally give me illusions of grandeur).

Once I had this torrent of emotion subside, I do not recall how I came around.  I do recall the sullen celebration of my (our) Birthday that year and I do remember that not too long after this (a year or so, if I recall correctly), my Great-Grandmother Backus passed on, causing much family in-fighting, which seems how the Backus’ best celebrate the passing of the family matriarch.  But I do know that this is the last time that I became emotionally wrought with the pain of loss to the point of having tears flow in rivers.  Something in me changed, and I think it really had to do with my outlook on death, that it wasn’t the end, and I needed to get on past my selfishness regarding holding onto a tangible notion of life.  Many of my spiritual and emotional growth points, I owe to maxims taught to me by my mother.  For those that don’t know her, she is an intelligent woman, with a large heart, one that sometimes gets her in trouble.  However, she also is a woman of faith, in its core a simple faith, informed well by being a Lutheran Christian, but really more universal than that.  She will tell you plainly, “God is love;” not even contextualizing that this comes as a direct quotation from John’s letters.  In this case, she really believes that everyone goes to heaven, and from there, they that pass, are active in our lives speaking to us and guiding us.  Again, this is not a nuanced or systematic statement of believe, but more of a heartfelt purposely naive maxim of truth for her, and one she passed to me (I will refrain here from going further in my current reflections on this, but see more on this at the end of this post).  But this leads me to the next death experience that has gotten me where I am.

Some years later, when I was in High School, another family death occurred that called us to Long Island, NY for a gathering of the Seaberg clan, my mother’s side of the family.  My Uncle Alan Seaberg had passed on at an age much younger than most would call standard, and being a contemporary (10 or so years older, but no more I think) of my parents, it was oft said that he had gone too early.  This is memorable to me for a lot of reasons.

Alan was a very wealthy self-made man.  His wife, my Aunt Martha, and he had built up the family business from what had been a small immigrant machinery company, to a firm that was building machines and components to feed the growing factories in Japan, China, and throughout the world.  Alan was actually my Mom’s first cousin, being the son of her father’s brother.  Both my Mom and he were first generation Americans, being that my grandparents and siblings all had emigrated from Sweden in the 1920s to the 1940s, seeking a better life for them and their eventual children.  My mother says that my grandfather Carl and his brother Victor worked to help build Holland Tunnel in NY, and were men of their hands.  Victor, Alan’s father, was a machinist, and it is for that reason that the Seaberg Precision Corp, machine company was to be, what it became.  All this history being good, it only begins to describe my Uncle.

Alan, even though he was a multi-millionaire (in a time before billionaires), didn’t carry himself as being one so much as I could tell.  Sure he had a big house in Middle Island, Long Island, NY, with an awesome pool, an old horse farm barn and track, a private pond on his property and lots of toys (adult (e.g a gun or two) and otherwise) to play with.  Nevertheless, he never held himself better than others, nor did he take care to pinch pennies, especially with family.  He had talented kids; one is now a professional musician and, another, an artist.  Moreover, he was a great cheerleader for whatever it was we were passionate about (I even recall him giving my Dad some sage advice about getting out there and expanding his business).  Therefore, when he passed in his late 40s, I can recall the outpouring of love to the family and for him that was shown.  But I also recall, that I never cried.

When he passed, albeit early by many measures, I reflected that his temporal work was done.  I am convinced that Alan was taken from us in bodily form, only because his earthly work was complete.  Not that his efforts were complete in the sense of being done and ready to ship out to the next customer, but that he, like my friend Jeff, had touched so many lives in such a way as to never truly die, instead God has called them home to do other work and to empower other actions.  I can tell you for my own part there is a specific portion of me that continues to emulate and follow in his footsteps.  As I indicated, he was a generous man, especially with family (trust me, his lobster barbeques are still recalled with much admiration).  To this end, while not being of his means, I give as generously as I can, to my church, and especially within the family.  Luckily, my wife is very much of the same mind, and we have had the privilege of being able to host her brothers here at our home in the DC area for large stretches of time, which I continue to see as a greater gift to us, than to them, in many ways.  This gets me to my next confrontations with death.

As can be told by the time spent on them, these two passings probably had the most impact on my life.  But I have had others that have taught me lessons that really extend beyond these primary experiences.  One was the passing of my grandmother Harriet Hall (formerly Backus).  Born in the Depression era, having lost her first husband, my natural grandfather (when my Dad was a pre-teen), she raised two boys, became a known local English and French teacher (so much so that my HS Junior year English teacher came to her funeral and recalled to me how much she had learned and tried to pass on from her) and Librarian, and eventually remarried a gentle, honest man, Stuart Hall.  Having survived both of her husbands, she eventually suffered a stroke that slowly sapped the life out of her.  My father, being the primary actor in her later years, carried the immense stress of not just dealing with her various legal and financial matters but coalescing things to the point of a decision that her time was done.  As she passed and understood all that was going on (her mind was keen, even if weakened by the strokes), it was in her rest that we saw again that gleam that was a hard fought life.  So I learned in this that life isn’t simply breathing, and having a heart pumping physiologically, it is a spark, an essence, a soul that carries us forward; one that we should be very careful about trapping in the confines of the corporeal for our own selfish reasons.

Another, nugget came from the death of a student at Clarkson University in my senior year.  This student, Remmi, had succumbed to alcohol poisoning and passed on at a very young age.  I had only known him in passing, but knew of him in the sense that he was active in the social scene that was in Potsdam, NY.  While there are several facets I can discuss about this situation that can lead to a stigmatized conversation, I believe the lesson that I learned here, is that death can spur action and cement convictions.  For me this incident, this loss of life, was one that fits into the “could have been prevented” column.  However, in the larger sense, while perhaps true, his death has had life now as we contend with the issues that surrounded his passing and determine a path forward to address those issues in our society.  Again, for me, God has a reason for how things happen; this isn’t pure pessimism that we can’t control our own destiny, but it does say that we are given the tools, abilities, and concepts to grapple with this world, and that, in death, we continue to be an active part of that grappling.

Finally, I cannot forget to cite my near death experiences and their effect on how I see the end of corporeal life.  As can be seen from the outset, I am a soldier, and I identify with that profession as much as I do of being an engineer.  Having had two combat tours to Iraq, I have had my brushes with my own mortality.  Sometimes (like the first instance) someone had to tell me we were shot at, and then deal with the possibility, other times (like when Paul Drezen pulled me to the ground during one artillery attack) it was utterly clear.  During the first year of the war, while phone privileges were limited, I made a point of calling Jackie, my wife, before I would “drive across town” (a.k.a. convoy across Baghdad and its environs) to let her know I was alive, and try to call her as soon as I got back (having done several dozen such missions, this wasn’t always possible).  My combat experience has taught me several things about death in this light.

First, we should not try to go out and get ourselves killed, but the randomness of violence in war, makes this possibility very real.  Thus, I am not about to hide on the FOB (Forward Operating Base, as those on my second tour can attest) because we cannot possibly win the war from the FOB (we have to engage with the population and grapple with the enemy), but I am also not going to just jump at the chance to run out and commit suicide.  While I know there is a providential nature to death, and life goes on well beyond the grave, we have a responsibility to do the work we are called to do, through the hazards taking the precautions that are reasonable to the task.

Second, we should assure that we have a plan so that the temporal nature of things does not become the burden for those around us in our passing.  The Army has taught me to have a battle book for the spouse when I leave, and we do that.  She has all of the key info, so if the worst happens, she knows how to contend with the legal, financial, and other aspects, and there is plenty there to do what needs to be done (and even if she can’t, there is a tool that can help another do it with/for her).

Lastly, we need to get our priorities straight in life.  Once you have had these kinds of experiences, certain things in life change.  Somehow, the excitement over inconsequential minutia fades into nothing, and the desire to spend time with loved ones and engage in passions that you have become more critical.  Answering one last email becomes so less important than being there for your wife’s surgery from beginning to end.  Stress and how you deal with it changes, and I know that your reliance on others, and especially something greater than yourself, becomes critically important.  This all enables you to see death in a very different light.

Closing out, I want to get back to the maxims that my Mom spoke, less in wisdom and more in blind faith, as a child.  “Everyone goes to heaven.”  Again, this is simple and profound.  As I have grown and experienced, the more and more I get back to this myself.  Years of study of church theology, especially Lutheran and Catholic fathers, as well as the Bible, reveals a dividing line between the damned and the saved, but this line is as fuzzy as it is defined.  The truth that all are saved who believe in Christ Jesus, and his is the only road, is not to be denied by me, as this is my belief.  Nevertheless, what is Christ Jesus and further what “belief in” means, these are ageless questions.  A fellow soldier once described God as if he were a full sized statue in a rotunda.  From each angle, you get a different view, yet not complete and yet still the same God.  Therefore, for Christians, God looks like a Jewish carpenter from Nazareth, for Muslims he is Allah, for Buddhists he is enlightenment, yet the same statue.  I am not one to say relativism is right, and I am not trying to contend that there are not real differences between faiths, but there are kernels of universal faith that exist throughout (e.g. as St. Paul says, “[t]hat piece of Christ that passes all understanding …”), and thus, “everyone goes to heaven” isn’t entirely without theological basis.  Another: “God is love.”  Not being a Christian Scientist, but having two adoptive grandparents who were, I am highly appreciative of Mary Baker Eddy’s exploration of the love chapter in Corinthians.  She takes the word “Love” in this chapter, and replaces it with “Faith”, and then “Hope” and then, finally “God” (e.g. God is patient, God is kind, …).  While on a whole of scripture perspective this beautiful rendition of this favorite chapter cannot be taken literally in every aspect (e.g. “God does not anger, …” would be refuted in the Old Testament through such examples of his anger with Moses or with Abraham), it does reveal something about the divine.  It says that you can bank on “God is love,” as being your cornerstone.  He is one with creation, and therefore creation is love.  He is one with our hearts, thus we are loved.  He is the great parent, and he loves us in the same way.  And if you take that beyond the temporal example, we recognize that a God that loves, loves us so much that we can die and yet live.  When someone dies, it is my love for him or her that continues forever to speak to me.  So in reflection, part of me continues to believe that death is not the end, mainly because how can my love ever end?

As Jeff is the latest person to be called home that I know, I again am not saddened as much as resolute.  I know he has done his work, it is not how I would have thought his life would have ended, but I know it was not without meaning.  I am not sure what I will take away from this experience, but I am convinced it is not the end, but another beginning, one that will not end, at least in the way we can comprehend.