My biggest fear is dying alone. I know I’m not the only person that thinks this:
“Getting old and dying alone is my worst fear.”
– Normal Reedus (Daryl on AMC’s The Walking Dead)
That’s a quote I found online. Not sure if Norman is talking about himself, or referring to his character. Either way, I’m sure many of us feel that way.
There aren’t a whole lot of things I’m afraid of, but dying alone is the big one. That feeling is probably even stronger being a single person. I’m not talking about loneliness, that’s a whole other topic. I mean the finality. The life experience of dying.
I don’t handle death well. I didn’t handle my dad’s death in 2010 well, pretty poorly actually. In some ways I’m still not over it. He himself died alone early one morning in a hospital bed in Texas. I understand he was found by nurses and/or doctors who tried valiantly to resuscitate him, but were unable to.
You hear sometimes about some people, usually of advanced age, who “passed away peacefully surrounded by family”. I imagine that is the best way to go, given that we all have to go one day. How many get that privilege of being surrounded by family and friends in their final hours? I have no idea. Does it matter? We can’t have someone go through the experience with us. Don’t we all die alone anyway?
“We’re born alone, we live alone, we die alone. Only through our love and friendship can we create the illusion for the moment that we’re not alone.”
– Orson Welles
Citizen Kane, Welles’ tragic character died alone as one of the richest men in the world. Yet, his dying words were calling out for his precious “Rosebud”.
What started me thinking about all of this, again, is that today is two weeks to the day music icon Prince died at his home Paisley Park, in Minneapolis. He was supposedly found alone in the first floor elevator. There is still a lot of speculation at this point about how he died, but here was someone worth millions of dollars, with tens of millions of fans all over the world, yet even he died alone.
I don’t have any special words or brilliant oration to comfort either you or myself. It’s just what’s been on my mind the past couple weeks.
Maybe we all need to create, like Welles, a more powerful illusion.
