November 16, 2009

• Meeting My Mortality: An essay

  “Last Rites”
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  Sunday, April 3, 2005 6:56 a.m. pdt

  
  We breathe, we believe, we bother, and we broker
  We experience, with exuberance, we wonder, and we wander
  The human life is precious, and we rarely notice this
  That God’s Great Gift is just a fleeting brushing glancing kiss

  Avowed to gaze into the sky and wonder why
  We look to Heaven, ask the questions, eradicate our doubts
  But when the reaper visits was there something we forgot
  And do we ponder feeling in the ground as bodies rot

  For hundreds of years the bodies disappear
  Into the ground, with sacrament, adorned by elaborate memorials
  Or else a simple cross, or star, or placard made of marble
  And the living will visit, gaze at the stones, and marvel.

  Astounding thoughts and reveries, epiphanies and silence
  Mortality comes knocking on the door at night unawares
  History calls up through the new cut grass
  And as we breathe, we realize that this life too, shall pass

  It was a morning so like any other morning. I got up before the alarm, as usual, at around four a.m., made my bed, fluffed the pillows, laid out the day’s outfit, took my shower, dressed, and went into the kitchen to prepare my lunch. As I was making the day’s sandwich, I heard what sounded like the trash truck grinding up the street. Since it’s Monday, and not Friday, when trash is usually picked up on our street, and since the trash truck usually comes by later than four thirty in the morning, I was a bit perplexed, and moved from the sideboard in the kitchen to the dining area, where I pulled aside the drapes.

  Living in a mobile home park, one doesn’t usually hear large trucks rumbling down the narrow streets. The sound was a truck alright, a red pumper, pulling to a stop two homes from mine across the street. Also I could see an ambulance parked in front of my neighbor’s home, and three police cruisers across the street. A few officers mulled around, and a couple of firemen were running from the pumper to the green mobile home across from mine, a little to the right of the block wall which is directly in front of me.

  A lot of activity before five a.m. And there was no discernable fire. I live in a senior park, and somebody must have either had a heart attack, or worse. We hear sirens all the time. There are ambulances driving down the streets of the park frequently. I’ve gotten used to the fact that there are more than a few deaths which occur regularly. After all, some of these seniors are pretty far up there in years. This is the first time there has been activity of this sort right across the street however, in the nine months or so that I’ve lived here.

  If it were three or four hours later, there would have, I’m sure, been a gaggle of neighbors with whom I could ask questions, and find out what was happening. As it was, I had to go to work, and my neighbor left in his car a few moments before I was to leave, so I surmised nothing had happened to his mother, who is my immediate neighbor, and in front of whose house the ambulance was parked.

  I heard the ambulance’s motor hum to life next, and it drove away, without any lights or siren. Of course this early in the morning I’m sure they wouldn’t have run the siren anyway. Most people are still asleep. I would have to wait until after I got home from work to find out what happened.

  At 4 p.m., upon returning home, I saw Carol, my neighbor, pulling out of her parrking space, and driving down the street. We waved at each other. There was no other activity on the street, so I walked up to her door after getting my mail. Her son Mike was standing on the porch. It was he who had left his house right before me that morning.

  “Waht happened this morning?” I asked. “I’m guessing everything is alright with you and your mom?” Mike smiled, and told me the guy in the green moblie home across the street had died. He lived alone, and somebody had callled 911. His body had been taken away, and his son had been called. I had wondered all day who might have passed away on our street. I didn’t know the deceased. In fact, I don’t remember ever having seen anyone in or around the green house. Mike explained he had moved in a month or so before I did last February.

  This incident got me to thinking. I’ve lost most of my circle of friends, and I live alone. I see my neighbor Mike about once or twice a week, and I rarely even see my other neighbor Sheila. I do work during weekdays, but I wonder what would happen if I were to suddenly pass away, say, on a Friday night when I didn’t have to be at work till Monday. Since sometimes our place of business will wonder why somebody doesn’t call in sick for two days, and depending upon whether or not one starts stinking quite soon after his or her death, it could conceivably be four or five days till my body was found.

  This gives one cause for introspection.

  I figure if I died on Friday night, even if I were watching my bigscreen at the time, since I watch in the dark and I don’t play my tv loud at all, nobody would probably even guess anything was wrong. I usually don’t get phone calls, and the only people who might call would be work, or the pharmacy if I had a prescription that needed to be picked up, or perhaps a friend, but this is unlikely, and if somebody did call, they’d just leave a message on my machine.

  I’m on the internet, and could very well look up to see how long a body stays “ripe” before stinking, however, this isn’t meant to be morbid. Let’s say that five days pass. I would become one of those people who died alone and nobody cared. I don’t have a will. (I promised myself that I would prepare one after Joel died because he didn’t have one, but I’ve put it off. Doesn’t seem that important. And of course it wouldn’t be, to me, since I’d be dead!)

  My neighbors don’t know if they should call anyone. I’m sure most of the concern would come from my workmates. The family is dealing with Jack’s stroke right now, but they would try to find someone to contact. I don’t have my siblings addresses or phone numbers in plain sight. I haven’t seen Daniel in over 10 years, nor Marijo in 20. We’re not close siblings by any definition of the word. I do have their addresses and phone numbers in my computer somewhere, and possibly in my wallet. I don’t know of any up to date documents where I ‘ve listed “emergency contact”. It’s probably Joel, since we were each other’s emergency contacts for fourteen years. (Yes, I got the call from the hospital that he’d passed away, and I was the one who had to call his brother and tell him the sad news.)

  I guess I really never thought I’d be one of those who dies and is not remembered. I can’t think of one, well perhaps one, maybe two people I know who’d even come to my funeral, if I had one. I do know I have a gravesite. My father bought plots for all the family when I was a child, but I don’t even know where the paperwork would be. I’ve never seen it.

  So, in light of what happened this morning, I think I have a little work to do, just to let someone who stumbles upon my dead body know who to call and what to do with the corpse. Again, I’m not trying to be morbid. I’m living in a place where I can wake up to the sound of fire trucks and ambulances, where death is a normal occurrence. It gets one to thinking, that’s all.

  I’m ready to “meet my mortality” by the way. I’ve lived a rich and full life. As I’ve written here many times, the reason I’ve lost most of my friends is because they’re all dead. I’m not a really old man. These guys all died young. I wish I were closer to my family, but my parents died young, in their early 50s, and after that both my sister and brother and I split up. My sister and brother later got married and had children (who are grown now). I was a pretty die hard druggie in the late 70s and early 80s, and they didn’t want crazy Uncle Mike around the kids, which was probably a good decision on their parts. I was possibly a bad influence. Now we all live in separate parts of California, which is a pretty big state.

  I think I’ll try to find out where I can sign up to donate my organs. My eyes are shot, but my ticker’s still pretty strong. (I could die of a heart attack, I guess, since my father had 12  of those before the 13th killed him.) I have a couple of good lungs, and I never drank enough that my liver is useless. I probably have a lot of organs which could help others after I’m found in whatever state they find me, here in my mobile home after four or five days.

  
  Oh, and I nearly forgot about the blog. I’m sure people will stop commenting on the “last entry” after about a week. Maybe I’ll get one or two comments which ask, “I wonder what happened to that poet philosopher fool guy who left the really long comments?” I always write about how our websites and blogs should become our legacies. I’m paid up for a “lifetime subscription”. Somebody told me that’s really 18 years, so I guess my blog will stick aournd in cyberspace until about 2025 or so. (Unless Xanga goes out of business, God forbid.)

  I hope somebody remembers me. And I hope there’s somebody to remember the guy across the street who passed away this morning. I didn’t know the guy, nor have I ever seen him. But he lived a life, and I’m sure he must have touched somebody at some time, during his years on the planet. God be with you, buddy. See you in the afterlife!.

  (Sorry if this seems morbid. It’s not really meant to be. You get to thinking about death after something like this happens when you’re my age, even though I feel healthy and “young”.)

  “Irony”
  Poetry by Michael F. Nyiri
  1971 (18 years old)
   
  I emerge from my cocoon
  Into the world of freedom
  Automobiles honking
  Air brakes screeching
  Sweepers sweeping
  Buildings grasping the heavens
  Antlike commuters in their bus
  The marquee blinking
  Streetlights dimly lit
  People everywhere

  I come into the world of light
  From that of darkness
  Flourescent light
  Electric light
  Artificial light
  Light turning on
  And I breathe the city air
  Smell the tar after a rain
  Cross the street in wonder
  And get hit by a bus

  ---

  EDIT: 11/17/09 9:27am pst. I am so honored to report that Thu (elelkewljay) has added me to her Distinguished Gentlemen series. HERE is a link to the entry. I’m at work on a pretty big project right now so haven’t had the time to go over and leave her a proper comment. (I’ll be doing that at lunch.) However I wanted to acknowledge the entry, and to give thanks for the honor. I’ve never been a part of anyone’s series on Xanga, and I’m No. XXIV in a long list of previous “distinguished gentlemen” on her blog. Thank you so very much Thu. I can’t tell you in words how special this makes me feel! MFN/ppf

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