Death is the new sex

Do you think about death a lot? I do. Could be the season (tomorrow is Halloween), could be the weather, could be the events happening in the country these days. My preoccupation with death could stem from all these things, but I'm guessing it comes mostly from visiting my mother every day. She just keeps on truckin'. I am impressed by the persistence of life. Human cells don't know the word retirement: cells want to keep working, even when they can no longer spell or remember what they had for lunch. They don't give up just because we, the human mind supposedly in charge of the cells, are tired of living.

Death is a relatively recent preoccupation for me. Like many people, I used to think a lot about sex. Well, love really, but let's not quibble. Getting it, giving it, getting more of it, getting it from the “right” person, or avoiding it, life was all about sex. And I suppose food and money, but food and money are just necessary ingredients to getting sex. For some, sex is about procreation; for some, it's about recreation; for some, look out for the devil's idle hands! I wasn't unique—for or against, it seems to me, many people obsess about sex.

However, if we are over a certain age, sex might seem increasingly distant and irrelevant. I don't think I'm unique in this regard either. In fact, I suggest death is the new sex. Now that I'm officially old, I think I am qualified to make this claim.

My friends who are my age or older used to discuss their relationships with me. As they learned to live their own lives, one by one, they have become single. With a few exceptions, they don't talk about relationships anymore. Now they talk about death.

“My friend was riding her bike and got run over by a garbage truck,” said a seventy-year-old friend who rides her bike a lot.

Another friend called me on the phone to tell me a story about her friend's suicide. Even though I did not know the person, I was both appalled and curious. More curious, really—I didn't care much about this person I did not know, but I was very interested to hear how he orchestrated his own demise. I wanted to pick up a few tips.

“He invited a couple friends over for the night, but made them stay in a separate room so they couldn't be held responsible,” she said.

“Couldn't he get a doctor's help?” I asked. This is Oregon, after all—Death with Dignity, 1997. We not only have the right to self-terminate, we can also get assistance.

“He wasn't dying, he was just in terrible chronic pain,” she replied. “He couldn't eat anything without excruciating pain. He endured it for six years and decided he'd had enough.”

I don't suppose it takes that much courage to choose an end to one's own endless suffering. Clearly, the guy had given life the old college try. I was impressed, though, by his careful planning. He wanted some help from close friends, but didn't want to implicate them in the event, so he sent them to spend the night in the guest room. He made sure he was lying on a lawn chair, not the bed, to avoid messing up the mattress . . . so thoughtful. Then he took three drugs—one to slow the heart, one to combat nausea, and the final, a huge dose of Seconal, which apparently does the trick. Hmmm. Where does one get a big dose of Seconal? No doubt from a doctor's prescription, like other controlled substances. Or on the black market.

I tried to picture myself scoring sedatives on the black market. Where exactly is the black market, I wondered. Probably off Hawthorne, where old hippies still lurk. Or in the Pearl. Yeah, in the Pearl. I hear those millennials over there are magicians at locating illegally obtained controlled substances.

“He wanted to watch the stars as he was dying,” my friend said wistfully. “And apparently the clouds cleared away.” I thought that was possible but unlikely, considering, you know, Oregon. We did have a stretch of great weather, though, unusual for October, so I guess it is possible. I wondered how she knew her dying friend got a glimpse of the stars . . . was someone perhaps peeking? I didn't ask her, not wanting to ruin her mood.

I've read that breathing helium is a gentle way to exit. Make a plastic tent over your head, fill it with helium from a balloon bottle, and drift away painlessly. That seems like a lot of work to me, and who will return the helium bottle to the party store after I'm gone? Plus, I'd need some friends to make sure I didn't try to exit the tent. No, too much can go wrong. My vote would be for fentanyl. Darn, I'm back to trying to find that black market. Sigh.

Well, like most Americans, I assume I have plenty of time to obsess about my demise. If I'm out of time, it won't matter. Someone else will have the tedious task of cleaning up my earthly remains. Not to mention, the clutter in the Love Shack. My apologies, in advance.