The Hardest Part

I think the hardest part of being a chaplain, so far, is that it has become very difficult for me to deny the fact that I am going to die someday. So will my family, and friends. So will everyone. Very obvious, I know, we all know that everyone dies. It's part of life: you are born, you live, you die. That's just how it goes, and there are all kinds of cute sayings to remind us of the inevitability of death.

But at the same time I go through life not thinking about when I might die, and I don't think I'm alone in this. Spending every living moment thinking about how I could die, and what to do about it, does not seem to be a very pleasant way to live. So I go through life trying to pretend I'm invincible, along with most everyone else. We drive aggresively, making that lane change even when the sun is in our eyes and we might have missed the car there; or maybe we roll through that stop sign, not really paying attention to what or who we might risk hitting. We don't exercise and eat the food pyramid, because there will always be time later to recover from that extra hamburger. We avoid the doctor unless we really need to, because visiting the doctor admits we might not be invincible after all. We put off fixing relationships, or saying the things we think we need to say, because there will always be time later.

But then when we're perfectly healthy, we catch the flu or some other unexpected disease and end up in ICU, barely hanging on, and our family wonders what happened. Or we drop suddenly from a heart attack, or an aneurysm, or an embolism, or a clot, or a stroke, and it isn't when we're 95 and ready to go and even somewhat expecting it, but when we're out jogging at 35, having sex at 26, swimming at 18, sitting watching TV at 47. Or we get in a car accident, or an act of violence we never saw coming, or a building collapses, or some other accidental event that we were no part of and never thought would happen to us, but it does and that's the end for us. Or cancer shows up when we least expect it, turns our own cells into assassins, and destroys us before we could finish doing whatever it was we thought we wanted to do. Or we come to the hospital for a surgery, procedure, or medication to make us better, but for whatever reason we don't make it through and what should have been a simple trip to get better ends in a surprise funeral.

And just like that, life ends. There's no predicting it, and in the end there's no stopping it. The easiest thing to do, at least for me, is to not dwell on it too much. To try and live without regrets, to correct the things I have to, and to try and remember that I'm not actually invincible. But watching people die on a regular basis is the hardest thing for me as a chaplain, not because it's sad (though it is often that), but because it reminds me that though I may never see death coming, death might still be lurking right around the corner. And I often think that it would be easier if I didn't have to remember that.