Death ever teach me

What attracted my interest was the recent award winning essay in New Philosophy entitled ‘Death oh, oh ever teach me ......, which provides a useful existentialist perspective.  

If raises the interesting question what can we learn from death, since we have yet to experience it? 

Wolfgang Gilliar, uses the title ‘Death oh, oh ever teach me….’  And therein, to denote his personage (I) as a young trainee nurse to whom he addresses his thoughts, who does not know anything about death; i.e. he lacks all understanding of it as he makes no mention of it.

So, to appreciate this essay one needs to firstly cast aside any religious, and ‘after life’ ideas one might reasonably have. Rather the “I” as in the young trainee at the hospital is restricted to discussing the effect and impact on the people surrounding the dying man, and subsequently hopes to learn something.

What he learns is exemplified in the titles given to each part of the unfolding narrative: Death, the inquisitor, Death the invitation to see, Death the unwelcome, Death, the giver of meaning. 

But one notices such revelations are about living with the prospect of death since death remains inexplicable. 

He begins by questioning how to define the family upon whom the death will impact and the next of kin to be contacted when death occurs. For many of us that may not be a problem as it may be clearly documented or understood in close knit families, but for the young trainee’s experiences that position in practice remained unclear: to whom and when will such a  communication of death be first sent. He asks the question is it the official next of kin faithfully recorded on the medical records or some other proxy, such as the executor of the will who recently added a codicil on the patient’s death bed so to speak, but finishes the essay still not knowing. 

His experience in the hospital allowed him to observe first-hand how patents opened up to him, when he customarily asked if anything should happen to you, or if God forbid you should die, who is the person to first contact. Here he began to learn about the human condition, sometimes to be in the privileged position to be with patients who would soon die. Death the invitation to see. 

He makes the valid point that most people are not so much afraid of dying but show concerns how they will die, or we might add how those who are left will cope. But he cites the emergence of often unexpected resilience as people’s character are exposed as if under the gaze of a high powered microscope, to illuminate the authentic self. In that sense, death, in a strange way, might be seen as the Liberator. Death the liberator. 

He was assigned to look after the needs of Dr Nouvel, for several months, who was suffering from a severe form of eye cancer. But the patient turns his face away from him as if to deny him the chance to look death in the eye so to speak. Similarly staff voiced the same weary complaint ‘when will it all end’, to dance around the word to die or death. Death the unwelcome. 

Dr Nouvel had been a gifted physician, a physician’s physician, whose prior vocation was resplendent in lifesaving approaches.   Staff now talked about his momentarily lapses into despair, manifested in yelling fits at people over trivial details such as the way his toast was not crisp. Death in living form. 

Sitting with the patience the author describes the hideous sight he sees. But in a quite movement he reflects on Purcell’s Dide and Aneas “Where I am laid, am laid in earth .......May my wrongs create no trouble ...........Remember me, remember me .........but ah, forget my fate. This moving piece from his only opera composition by Purcell, is played each year on Armistice Day by a military band at the Cenotaph remembrance ceremony in London’s Whitehall.

 “Death the quiet invader.” 

In the final section Dr Nouvel had directed an intense family family conference, where his will had been updated with his attorney present, where he exhibited amazing clarity as if he was directing traffic for the after world. Thereafter, having put his earthly house in order, firstly his spirit and then his body departed.   

Death, the giver of meaning.