Death has invaded my life again. Rudely. Callously. And I don’t mind telling you that I am freshly affronted by this cruel scheme Satan keeps using to disrupt the equilibrium of my world.
I first remember feeling this sense of total outrage when Nat King Cole died young. His mellow tones had charmed my adolescent soul. Even today, more than 30 years later, I never hear his husky rendition of “Stardust” without feeling anew my indignation that cigarettes silenced decades of his musical mastery. What a waste!
Then it was Karen Carpenter’s turn. With her brilliant smile and brighter melodies she enchanted and delighted my heart. And then one awful day, without warning for those of us who knew nothing of her anorexic struggles, her angelic voice was suddenly silent. I have not yet accepted her dying.
In the past decade I made the mistake of getting addicted to Lewis Grizzard’s irreverent brand of humor. Occasional columns about his cardiac problems prepared me a little better for his untimely demise, but I still ache a bit when I open my Sunday morning paper and he’s not there. And, to make matters worse, Calvin and Hobbes “died” too.
Now Erma Bombeck is gone. Dear Erma, whose grass was indeed greener on the septic tank. Cancer has eclipsed her irrepressible humor, and there’s a new hole in my universe. An emptiness. Where her chuckle used to be.
In a sober moment not long before she died, Erma wrote, “A
serious illness is marriage’s unspoken fear. The chances of a couple staying
healthy together and dying at the same time are
One day each of us will “stumble.” Hopefully the people we leave behind will be as indignant about our departure as I have been about these whose end came far too soon to suit me. It’s a cinch we don’t want folks to be glad we’re gone!
My anger at death’s intrusion into my world has only one adequate answer. The Bible tells us that Jesus used Satan’s own dirty trick to ruin him. “By death,” we’re told, Jesus destroyed “him who holds the power of death.” That’s justice.