Who Walks Behind - Memoro Menti

Memoro menti is Latin for “you have to die” according to Wikipedia.

Thousands of years ago, Roman generals appointed slaves the task of constantly whispering to them something along the lines of, “you too will die,” as they rode via horseback. This is arguably the origin of the phrase “memoro menti”.

This is also, I suspect, the subject matter of the Ghost song “Pro Memoria.” The chorus of this song is, “Don’t you forget about dying, don’t you forget about your friend death, don’t you forget that you will die.” The song is therefore the slave’s constant whisper to the general: “you are mortal, and your time will end.”

I find myself more acutely aware of an inevitable end these days (hopefully not soon, but inevitable nonetheless). The following have helped present this truth to me: a current injury, a surgically removed tumor from my 20s, and the realization that time accelerates with age.

I do not delude myself into thinking that this present life is a gateway to some sort of eternity. Such a notion strikes me as vain (what other biological creature is bestowed such an honor, and worse, a self-appointed one?), and also potentially lazy. An assumption of eternity is often an excuse to do nothing with the present moment, under the false assumption that there will always be a tomorrow. One could argue that religion convinces its followers to limit themselves, to go “sinless,” with promises of eternity as well.

Such an epiphany, the realization of finiteness, renders the concept of “sacrifice” a difficult one to grasp. The justification of sacrifice, after all, is for the sake of a better tomorrow. But tomorrow is not a guarantee and therefore sacrifice is a gamble.

Conversely, to neglect tomorrow, to indulge in full-blown hedonism in this present moment, runs a very real risk of creating a hellish future. So, one has no choice but to assume that a tomorrow will exist, that some preparation for it is warranted, and that some sacrifice today could potentially render tomorrow “better.”

Past and present. Sacrifice and indulgence. It is a balancing act. To accept the “hell” of today for the sake “heaven” tomorrow, to sacrifice, runs the very real risk of dying having only experienced hell. I think of a father I knew who died of cancer in his 40s having only known a life of “saving aggressively for an early retirement.” His son, determined not to repeat the same mistake, indulged in a life of extreme hedonism and wound up in deep poverty by the same age.

Tomorrow is not a guarantee and neither is good health. There is a yin/yang sort of walk on a tightrope in regards to handling the present and future. And there are no answers to how far one should stray towards either side.

So we work, but we are wary of working “too much” (to die in a cubicle is to never have lived!). And we conserve, but we are wary of conserving “too much” (to live for “saving” is to forsake life completely!). And we are tasked with meditating and soul search for what exactly “too much” is in our lives. In doing so, do we “die in a happy medium?”

I prepare for running and retirement and cycling and skateboarding and travel and hiking up mountains and swimming in seas and reading new books!

And while I plan I also must whisper to myself, “Don’t you forget about dying, don’t you forget about your friend death, don’t you forget that you will die.”

A Tribute to My Grandfather

This morning I found out that my grandfather passed away the day before. He was the last of my grandparents still alive, and he fought for life far longer than anyone would have ever given him credit for.

I had a dream not long ago in which I visited Hank. In reality, I had not seen him in years. I am not sure that I could withstand what dementia and age did to him, had I attempted a visit.

I’m not one to believe in fate or in dreams portending reality, but it seemed fitting that I was allowed one final visit in my dream, and that my dream allowed me to see the old Hank, the incisive and witty grandfather whom I knew from childhood. I was able to wish that version of him goodbye. I don’t usually thank the higher powers that be, but I am thankful for that one final encounter. And I’m grateful that in our final meeting, he proved his doubters wrong with a dance and a joke.

My grandpa loved me. I’ll always remember that. I remember the joy he had in making breakfast pancakes for my brothers and me. Damn were they delicious! I also remember his mastery of crossword puzzles and his rapid rate of reading. I remember him reading several books each week; he was a sponge for knowledge. I also remember his fascination with my hobbies, and with my brothers’ hobbies. He was genuinely interested in the shows we watched, the books we read, and the video games we played. He was happy to just watch us doing something that captivated us.

My best memory, one that I’ll always be thankful for, was from a childhood day on a Florida beach. It was decades ago, so the name of the beach escapes me, though I’m pretty sure it was Daytona. I was with my brothers and several cousins. We were playing catch with a football, racing back and forth on the warm sand, sending the football sailing into the air. My grandpa was already rapidly weakening at that time; this was not long before he lost the ability to walk.

He watched us play and I could tell that he wanted to join us more than anything in the world. Finally he got up from his lounge chair and he walked toward us, though the other adults cautioned him to take it slow. “Are you sure you can do this, Hank?” I heard them ask. Yet he shirked them off, he walked forward, and then, to my greatest shock, he ran a little! And he ran towards the football that had recently fallen on the beach.

He bent down and picked up the football, and he threw it towards the kids!

The football did not go far, but the disbelief that I, my brothers, and my cousins had in that moment was incredible. We did not know he could ever do such a thing, but we knew he did it because he wanted to share our fun.

I also had the dark realization that I had just watched him throw the last football he would ever throw, and potentially run for the last time that he would ever run. I have no way of confirming this, but I suspect it’s true. And he did it to have fun with us. I’ll always remember that. There’s something extraordinary in seeing someone perform what we assume to be an everyday action for the last time.

He was always great at surprising people. Even his longevity was a surprise. He was supposed to be the first of the grandparents to go. He loved scotch and he never exercised, after all. His diet wasn’t the best either (to understate his diet).

95 years is an incredible span, and many of those years blessed everyone around him. Whomever you are, my anonymous reader, I wish you could have met him, back when he was healthy. You would’ve liked him. He could’ve told you about more books than you ever knew existed, and he probably would’ve made you laugh more than a few times.

I remember a joke he told me in my teenage years, moments after I went “Number 2” at his house (following a large dinner). I told him that I had just taken a particularly huge dump and he retorted, “I know. Your eyes just turned from brown to blue!”

I’d say he’s in a better place, but I’m not certain that’s true. The concept of an afterlife is a relatively dubious thing. It seems more likely that we return to the place from which we began, which is nothing. But perhaps nothing is a better place, as it is a place still residing completely outside of decrepitude.

Death is not easy, and for Hank, sadly, it was slow and torturous. I suspect if I live for 95 years, my death will be the same. And likely your death will be the same as well, my anonymous reader, should you live long enough. And that’s okay. It’s an unspoken brutality of life, but I find it preferable that we accept it as a natural consequence of age.

Like Hank did so many times, we still have the potential to make something of ourselves today, and to make something special of the occasion, to run when everyone expects us to only crawl, and to throw a football when everyone expects us to hide in the shade and watch from a safe distance.

Hopefully I can meet you one more time, somewhere out there in the cosmos, Hank. If there’s a heaven, it smells like fresh and syrupy pancakes right now.

A Random Dream

My grandfather has been suffering dementia for over two decades. He’s in his mid-90s now, and as of this writing he’s still alive.

I haven’t visited him in years, but I’ve heard him described as a shell of his former self. I imagine a frail husk of a person, withered and weak, wizened and pale, moving here and there but not fully aware, wheelchair bound and incapable of much else besides weak breaths.

I had a dream the other night that I visited my grandfather. Before the visit my family members warned me: “You’re going to be shocked and horrified by his appearance. The person in that nursing room is not your grandfather. He won’t know you or remember you.” My grandmother, who is now dead, was also in the dream, warning me that the encounter would be a painful experience.

I opened the door to my grandpa’s nursing room and was greeted by a version of my grandpa that existed 30 years ago. He was mentally sharp, still possessing color in his hair, and he stood up on his own two legs. He joked with me and shook my hand. Behind me, my family was silent.

It seemed he had hoodwinked everyone, I thought, like Willy Wonka’s introduction in that old 70’s film!

“Don’t be fooled, he might look okay right now, but he’s in terrible shape and has no mind left,” someone whispered to me, convinced that what we just witnessed was only a momentary flash of acuity.

“Don’t listen to them!” My grandpa declared. “I’m fine, see?” And he shimmied a dance move, grinned, laughed, and took a sip of scotch from a nearby glass. “What a joke I pulled on everyone, huh!?”

Baffled, I proudly shouted, “See, he’s fine! He’s in even better shape than all of us!”

I woke up and thought about death, how grueling it is. Like a leech devours blood, age will drain someone of their identity slowly, over many years. If we live long enough, we will inevitably watch someone close to us die horribly.

I often suspect there is no soul or afterlife. Our minds contain our full identities and ability for self consciousness. Our concept of ourselves is therefore as fleeting as a shooting star, a flash in a sky filled with glittering lights that’s gone and easily forgotten. Blink and you’ll miss it. With the passing of the mind, a vessel remains with lungs that expand and contract, and a heart that weakly pumps blood through arteries. It is still something organic, like a tree, but tragically little more.

Identity is therefore fleeting, so it’s important to have a strong grasp of it while I can. It’s a valuable commodity for any person, more precious than any metal or money, because without it we are not fully alive. There’s no rule on how long self consciousness can last, but it tends to be shorter than one wants.