Edging Closer

Trey Smith

Michael Clarke Duncan died of complications from a July heart attack on Monday. Duncan portrayed the character John Coffey in one of my all-time favorite movies, The Green Mile. At the time of his death, Duncan was 54 years old which, as it so happens, is how old I am.

This is one of the aspects of growing old that I think many readers can identify with. When you are twenty or thirtysomething and you learn that someone your age has passed away, you might say, "Gee, that's too bad" and not think much more about it. While you are cognizant of the fact that humans die at all ages, most of us like to think that we will live a good long time.

However, this perspective changes the more we age. For some folks, 40 seems to be the turning point. For others, it's 50 or 60. Whatever age represents the turning point for each of us, it's at that time that we start giving more serious consideration to our own mortality. When we learn that someone around our age has dropped dead, we sit up and take notice!

The reason is more than obvious: we realize that we are edging closer to the very same outcome.

One of these days the obituary in the newspaper will be mine. I, of course, won't be around to read it or to know how my loved ones have reacted to my demise. The same thing will happen to you as well.

Though we each may imagine what death is like, we intuitively understand that there is no way to know...until it happens to us. Even then, we may not know.

We may never know; death itself may be unknowable.

As rational actors who like certainty and knowledge, this inkling of unknowability can be disquieting. It's the kind of thing that causes us to lay awake in the middle of the night staring at the ceiling.