Danse Macabre. N. Thomas Johnson-Medland
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The blank, expressionless absence of words that saying “death” creates, that feeling is the feeling of Death himself. He has gained that feeling because we have filled his image with elemental impressions that are filled with fear. Our innards writhe at the mention of the word. The anxiety that swims in us is an overbearing pile of snakes. They steal our tongue and dull our minds. Just utter the word, you will see.
He is what we have created him to be. Not that Death does not have his own intrinsic meaning. It does. He does. But, impressions add to meaning—that is for sure. Fear has added an immense stock of impressions to what is conjured up when we hear the mention of “Death” or think in his direction.
When we do not talk about something, we are not saying that there is no belief behind that idea; that we have nothing inside us concerning that thing. We are saying that we struggle with being able to put words to what it is that is going on inside. This is what the Gospel of Thomas, 70 was getting at. If we do not put words to that thing in us, it will consume the whole of our days and drive us toward its own self fulfillment. Basic psychology, folks.
We can have all sorts of linear beliefs about death and dying; “bumper sticker phrases” to shield our hearts from the dread we feel. But, most people when faced with transformation are not permeated with a peaceful surrender that longs for transition. They recoil with some ancient lurking sickness that is beyond them. Their dark silence runs deep. We fear Death most often.
* * *
His minions are made up of the recently dead, and His spiritual envoys—angels of Death if you will. His minions are new arrivals and the long-dead alike. His minions do his bidding. They are journeymen and masters. His minions are also small thoughts, images, and inklings of the idea of separation, loss, and death. Little things that give us a glimpse—askance—of death.
You could say there are layers to the impressions and meaning of Death. There are pieces to the complete identity of Death. They float aloft like wisps of carbon around a fire. Those layers, those pieces, and those wisps make up the minions of Death.
Most of the time people do not recognize that things in our lives have multiple and graded meanings. They do not recognize the layers to things. They believe they have streamlined and singular beliefs about things like God and love and death and sex.
The fact is, most of us have concentric meanings and impressions about everything in our world. Without them we would be unable to survive. The echolocation of our lives is always seeking out where things are in conjunction to where we are. This sensing is able to identify depth where we had only thought there was a surface. We just do not rely on this sensing; we do not feel for more than initial soundings.
* * *
When you feel Death, it may be a minion. It may just be one of the recent dead who are unfamiliar with what has happened to them. It may be remnants of a conversation on the dismal topic. It may be Death himself has perched himself aloft in the space around you. It may simply be lineaments of your last funeral. You can feel Death, though. You can feel the presence of the idea of dying. It may be a missing of someone you no longer have within view; just outside your reach, and touch, and grasp.
* * *
When people die, some of them do not die knowing they are dying. Quick and sudden deaths are like this. These people seek out the living in order to carry on usual relationships with them. Since they do not know they are dead, they do not know they should stop living—and so they do not. They just keep on carrying on with “life” as they knew it. All the while, they are dead. Their echolocation is really poorly developed. It can happen with people that are in deep concentric rings of denial or ignorance—those who have not allowed things to come up and out into the conscious light.
These unclear dead folks—transformed people who do not know they are transformed—try to crash in to familiar scenes. They go down the hall from their death room and seek out urgent and familiar feelings. They look for “Clara” or “Bob” and launch off into some one-sided, unheard conversation.
They run after their sister that is running out of the house in tears. The gap between living and dying is not as cavernous as we had hoped. We see people who have died for weeks after the change has happened.
The newly dead try to meet up with people. They are trying to see if things are really as different as they feel, or if they are only exaggerating what they feel. It is sort of like walking into a meeting and immediately joining into the conversation. You kind of hope people will forget you were late. That is what the newly dead do, if they did not know Death was coming. They are hoping people will somehow forget they are late. They are a bit unsure of their own lateness as well.
It is amazing to me that more of them do not recognize something is odd right at the outset. But, for many it takes a while to orient their new world with the old world. Gibran was right: death is sort of like a denied poet or prophet. It is in our midst, but we have not ears to hear or eyes to see.
After a while, the newly dead begin to sense that something is different. At first, there is no real knowing, but there is a sensing that things are not the same. The “knowing” that they are dead, comes later. It happens when they meet another transformed person who comes to help, or it comes when they have attempted to talk to the living so many times that they can piece together why they fail to respond.
The living go through this same shift. We often see those who have died. They are just across the room. We see them at a distance in the mall. We are sure that they were in that meeting. We will eventually stop seeing the dead in our homes, and malls, and lives as well. We will get on with life and our minds will adjust. We tell ourselves it is over and they are gone. But the gap is not as cavernous as we had hoped.
We all have a period of adjustment to go through when death occurs. The living as well as the dead.
* * *
I have had patients meet up with me in my home. They are looking for someone they can openly confide in. They all live at least forty minutes away from me, and have no idea where I live, but they show up, wanting to connect. I mean dead ones meet me. The impressions of these patients meet me; their spirits meet me; the essence of who they are meets me. The newly dead seek out the familiar and will go at great lengths to feel comfortably familiar with their new life. And so, those who need me to help make sense out of what is going on have met up with me. If only in a dream.
I am not sure if this is a violation of patient privacy, other newly dead meeting me and seeding themselves into where I am going? But, at any rate, HIPAA violation or not, they seek out life because they don’t know it is missing. They follow me into my day. They hope I will not notice that they have shown up to the meeting late.
* * *
There was one MHMR patient I had visited for months while she was alive. She was—at first—unsure of why we were meeting, even though we were speaking about being sick and about death. Her parents would not allow any of us on the hospice staff to make the connection with her predicament and her dying. We could not talk about her death. I spoke about it tangentially for months.
I spoke about it tangentially because I believe that is all that is necessary for people to do the work themselves and make the inner connection. She did. Against her parents wishes she brought forth that which was within.
She showed up at my house one morning at two o’clock. She marched into my dream and waking all at once. She suddenly knew she was dying and her vaporous self tracked me down. She said to me, “I don’t know how to do this.” She wanted my help.
I explained it to her. I talked about transitions. I sat down, felt around my heart for an idea of what she was going through. When I felt/saw the scenario, I explained her way through it. I told her how to travel through the landscape of her dying.
When she arrived in my dream, I could smell her presence in my waking. It was the smell some dying people have mixed with her household odors. The smell was so strong that I knew she was coming to me before she actually appeared. I could smell her; in my sleeping and in my waking. I knew her in the shadows. The smell made my dream turn