Baby Boomer Lamentations

Thanatophobia, the fear of dying, is more common than sheeple probably want to admit or to talk about so the whole topic is taboo in modern western culture, and that makes the shock even greater when the time comes. New York movie maker, Woody Allen spoke for most of us when he said, “Life is full of misery, loneliness, and suffering - and it's all over much too soon...still...I don’t want to live forever in my work; I want to live forever in my apartment.” Although death seems to be the universal ending of life, very few sheeple anticipate it with pleasure and yearning. Nevertheless, as therapist Mary Pipher said in her chronicles of the old-old generation in Another Country, (1999) “We shall all experience our ship going down.” She concluded, “All lives ultimately are tragedies. Not only does nobody get out of this place alive, but nobody gets out without loss and despair...everyone carries heavy burdens...everyone.” And the only thing one can do finally is accept it for themselves and witness it in loved ones with courage and surrender. That realization put Dr. Pipher into a meltdown crisis in 2002 after watching her physician-mother suffer for a year before dying that she documented in her memoir, Seeking Peace. (2009) and caused her to close her therapy practice. She lamented, “We are in a crisis. We lack housing arrangements, social structures, traditions, and wisdom to make the last years of life manageable...There is a lot wrong with this picture.” The burden of life challenges she witnessed among her clients and the final year of her mother became too much and she crashed in burnout by forgetting the basic rule of therapists; do not listen. Not only did she listen, but she documented what she heard and thereby took on the weight too heavy to carry. Mary Pipher learned the hard way in her own personal crisis the Buddhist principles that acceptance is the key to serenity and gratitude is the key to happiness. And some things really are just unknowable, like what happens after death. She described herself as “the worst Buddhist in the world” and one who was running around “like a head with the chicken cut off.” And, like the confusion among victims on the “unsinkable” Titanic, it can come as a great shock if we refuse or cannot accept our mortality and let go of the worthless body when the time comes while letting go of all concern for our survivors. They will have too look out for themselves.