What Do You When You Reach An Age Where A Lot Of People You Know Are Dying?

by Darryl L. Fortson, MD

My dear friend Morris died a few days ago. He texted me at 9:00 am my time. He died around 2:00 pm. Our mutual friend Kelvin, along with other friends Darryl B. and Len called to tell me. Kelvin was about to go his father-in-law's funeral. He will leave there to go to Morris's.

My best friend Keith had to buy a suit in Portugal and change his flight home to bury another fraternity brother (and my line brother) Grease in June. My classmate and Morris's classmate J.R. died a few weeks ago. My cousin Lloyd just buried his aunt, and his father a few months prior. Another cousin Greg buried his aunt and his mother. Friends are caring for parents and in-laws descending into dementia. Family and friends are being hospitalized, frat brothers are being placed in hospice, loved ones are being hospitalized for psychotic breaks. What in the world is going on?

The answer is that life is going on - people get older, they get more frail; they die slowly, they die suddenly. But what are we to do? How do we cope with this unavoidable reality of the mortality, not only of the one's we love, but of ourselves? How do we keep from getting KO'd every time the people we care about, love, and have made memories with pass away? I thought I had reconciled myself to these things happening. I had to, since Death visited me early, and before most of my friends, when my mother passed a month before my 19th birthday. That was a "sucker punch." It was a one-off that hit me without warning. But you can deal with a sucker punch, even if it knocks you unconscious, like losing one's mother, especially that young can often do. You come to, shake it off, treat your bruise, and move on.

But there is a big difference between getting sucker punched by Death and getting in the ring with him. This is where folk of a certain age like me - born in between the early 1960's and the early 1970's are right now. They are in the ring with Death, getting punched by his consequences week after week, month after month, as friends and loved ones face life-threatening peril and the end of their lives. And the larger your circle of family and friends are, the more body blows you have to take. Moreover, the only way to "leave the ring" is to have Death deal a fatal blow to you. So how do keep standing in the ring? How do you punch back? Going forward, this is my strategy to go the distance.

1.) I will continue to revisit gratitude. The best way to not have to grieve the loss of beloved family and friends is simply to not have any. You can live in a bubble or on island or on a distant planet seeing and talking to no one, but the Surgeon General has not declared loneliness a public health issue so much because people are burying friends and family, but because many people never had or have many friends or family in the first place.

I am grateful to have friends to lose and to have friends who have lived a life in a manner that evokes sadness when those lives end. Morris was a brilliant physician, and a "Renaissance Man." He played in our college band. He was an Omega Man. We gave our lives to Christ on the same day, at the same church, together while we in college. He rode his bike 5 to 20 miles or more every day. He was out read by no one. He was one of the advisors for my own personal health. What I and his friends lost in death pales in comparison to what he gave us in life. How can I be anything but grateful?

But not just for him - for good parents, and a good wife. For the blessings of children and other friends. For health and strength and a sound mind, and employment. We need to always revisit the things we can be grateful for. To do otherwise is to answer Christ's assertion that He died on the Cross for us with a cynical, "so what?" This, we must not do.

2.) Go with the blow. Newton's 3rd Law states that "for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction." In other words, when Death punches you in the face with its hand and you resist the reality, you are in essence punching Death in the hand, but you are doing so with your face. When I got the call about Morris passing, I was in the grocery store. I didn't even really try not to cry - I would have failed any way. And why bother trying to hold back tears? If I am sad and upset, I need to be sad and upset in truth. We have a right and a reason to mourn our lost friends and loved ones. We don't need to internalize that pain. We need to release to the wind and to the Lord. Otherwise, we are just punching ourselves with the punch-energy of Death from the outside in. We need to "go with the blow" and diffuse its energy.

3. Stop. Just stop. Hey! Where the hell are you going? To do what? With who? To what end? Sit your a-- down for a minute - for one doggone minute! Be still. Be calm. Be quiet. Listen to God in the wind and in the chirping birds. Remind yourself what silence sounds like. Your time until you meet Death can be measured in minutes - maybe a few, maybe tens of thousands, but the number is only getting smaller, not bigger. Abraham was still in the desert when God told him his inheritance. Jacob was still when he wrestled with God in his sleep. Elijah was still under the broom tree as he prepared for his supernatural run to the hills. Jesus sat still on the shores of Lake Gennesaret. The Apostle John didn't move a muscle (save perhaps his pen as he wrote) as he watched the "Book of Revelation Movie" God played for him on the island of Patmos. Rest. Renew. Get your prayers on. That's why there is a minute break between rounds in every boxing match. Find your "neutral corner" every day. Every death of someone close to you is a message, in part, to you. I am working to be still and quiet long enough to hear what God is trying to say.

4.) Let it go. Your parents' mess. Your sibling conflicts. The molester. The ex. The racist/sexist boss. The "soul mate" that got away. The conman. The kick that went wide right. The game winning free-throw you missed. The boyfriend you caught in bed with your bestie. The boyfriend you caught in bed with the dude down the hall. The pain of funerals past. The kids and the parents and siblings who don't return your phone calls, or accept your apologies, nor offer their own.

Let that mess go. Let it all go. What's Morris gonna do with that mess now? My cousins? What am I gonna do with it? I'm gonna let it go, that's what I'm gonna do. "The world behind me, the Cross before me, no turning back, no turning back," goes the hymn. I've got to let it go. I don't recall reading in Scripture that Enoch or Elijah or Jesus ascended into Heaven with briefcases. Lot's wife got downright salty looking back. Forgive. Move forward. The Kingdom is that-a-way ------> and that-a-way ↑. And you don't want to miss it looking back.

5.) I'm going to continue, as best as I can, to be kind. I decided long ago to be kind. It was my nature. Maybe I'm too lazy to sustain meanness. "Love is patient, love is kind." If you aren't kind, then your love is vapid and lacking, and you are going to look back on your life the same way Morris looked had to look back on his with his last breath and heartbeat, you are going to see a lot of empty, valueless activity, because you lived without loving, or with empty love. You ain't gonna be too happy about that. Get rid of the unkindness. It will help you see the beauty of life and the beauty of the life of others. And when you draw your last breath, people will be sorry to see you go, instead of being sorry that you ever were.

6.) I'm going to continue to tell "yo' mama" jokes. Yo' mama jokes, are for me, my "golf." They are my passionate hobby. I started talking about people's mamas in high school to inoculate myself from being short and picked on. I found out I was good at it. Some of my stuff was over-the-top vulgar and yes, hurtful, but I'm way past that phase. Now my jives are just absurd.

"Yo' mama got more eyes than teeth - and she's a cyclops..."

"I put yo' mama in a seven-dog beauty contest. She came in ninth..."

"I asked yo' mama why she lives in the monkey house at the zoo. I said, 'Is it because you're real ugly?' She said, 'no it's because they take Section 8....' "

"Yo' ol' girl got a wombat refuge in the crack of her booty - and all the wombats wanna leave..."

All my jives are "homemade." You might laugh at these jives; you might not. You might be laughing because you think the jive is funny, or it might be because you are laughing at the notion of a fully grown man coming up with something that puerile and silly in his adulthood, or you might not be laughing at all. I don't know, and I don't really care. It makes me laugh and gives me joy, not in putting anyone down, because it's not that at all anymore - it's about the joy of the jive itself. It harkens to my youth and good and hilarious times with dear friends. It fills me with whimsy and makes a brief jolt of joy accessible to me at all times.

How can you "access joy at all times?" Jokes? Macrame? Golf? Your favorite team? Your Spotify playlist? Writing? Baking apple pies? Calling your kids? Playing fetch with your dog? The Word of God? Access your joy. And as long it doesn't hurt anybody, I'm gonna access mine.

7.) Depart from drama and the people who waste your time. I have concluded watching my friend Morris's funeral virtually. I met him 44 years ago, which feels like 15 minutes ago, and now he's gone. Morris's greatest hero was the Rev. Dr. Benjamin Elijah Mays, the past President of Morehouse College. Dr. Mays wrote the following poem:

“I Have Only Just A Minute”

I have only just a minute,

Only sixty seconds in it.

Forced upon me, can’t refuse it.

Didn’t seek it, didn’t choose it.

But it’s up to me

to use it.

I must suffer if I lose it.

Give account if I abuse it.

Just a tiny little minute,

but eternity is in it.

Morris texted me at 9:00am; he arrived in Eternity around 2:00 pm. I ain't got time any more for people creating drama, hate, and bad karma and folks who aren't pointing their lives toward Christ and all things good and noble. Do you?

8. Have mercy. The ultimate source of our joy is from God. It is packaged in His love. But the package contains the prize, and the prize is His mercy.

The Cross is the ultimate, spectacular, and superlative manifestation of the mercy of God for mankind, because it gave us access to God in spite of our common failings. Absent God's mercy, He becomes an eternal "hanging judge" who pumps out generation after generation of people bound for Hell. But the mercy of the Lord through Christ Jesus changes that. It gives us a truly golden opportunity to restore ourselves to right relationship with Love itself. Mercy allows us to be wrapped in the gift of Love.

But here's the thing about mercy. You get as much as you give. It is a component of quantum physics. Like love, it defies mere mathematics, increasing to you even as you give it away to others. Lord, have mercy on all of us who are bewildered and hurting about the loss of our loved ones and our friends. We need to receive your mercy! Which means, we need to give it. So, give it.

9.) Invest in your health. Health is relatively inexpensive, but it is sickness that costs. There is a doctor you need to see. See them. There are some tests you need to get done. Do them. There are some vitamins you need to take. Take them. There are some exercises you need to do. Execute them. There is some sleep you need to get. Get it. There are some vices you need to give up. Give them up. There is some knowledge about health and wellness you need to know. Pursue it. What does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his only soul? Or his health before he gains his soul? Or his health right after he gained his soul because he made no investment in his health in order to enjoy his life? Make the investment.

10.) Those who die in Christ live forever. I've got problems. You've got problems. Morris ain't got no problems - at least not anymore. When he texted me at 9:00am Pacific time, he had problems. At 2:00 pm, his problems ended. They ended because He knew the Lord. I was standing right beside him at the church in Atlanta in early May of 1981 when he gave his life to Christ, along with me. He didn't live a perfect life - heck, who does? But he lived one in love of the Lord, His Word, His Law, and of the family, neighbors, friends, and patients that the Lord allowed to cross his path. I can be sad for a moment for the loss of my friend from where we were, but I can't be sad about where he went. And when I feel sad, I am going to remember that. “Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?” (I Corinthians 15:55)

And that, my friends, is what I'm gonna do about reaching an age where a lot of people I know are dying.

Darryl Fortson, Morris Reese, and W. Kelvin Walker