No one knows when the end will come, I am sure that throughout history some very poignant last words have been uttered moments before an untimely end, such as “ we are safe, bears are asleep this time of year,” or “Is the electricity more dangerous because we’re standing in water?” and “I wonder what this red button does?” My personal favourites of course would be “I don’t think its flammable,” and “I have made a change, try it now.”
To grow old gracefully, that is a goal most hold. There is a point in time, very difficult to identify when exactly, where instead of tripping you have a fall, instead of going in for an operation you now have a procedure and instead of impulse buying $35 dollar socks from Herringbone on Collins Street, while on the way back from a power lunch, you now get up at 6:00am to miss the rush on the travel support, winter warm thermal socks which are on (whistle through your teeth as you say) special for two days only at Big-W.
Some people remove themselves gracefully from the gene pool, The Darwin Awards celebrate the crème de la crème of the idiotically deceased including a French man who decided to change the bathroom light bulb - while in the bath. A truly shocking story, he was always so light-hearted, but did always swim against the current and had a short fuse. This is shining a light on my dark humour, ok I’ll stop…. I am flicking the switch off now, pulling out the plug on my puns.
At least if you stupidly electrocute yourself you will never tasty the sickly sweet Pear Juice that heralds the end of your days. Pear juice you ask, yes pear juice. Nursing homes dish out pear juice to residents to keep them regular, to keep you moving along so to speak. I visited a number of Nursing homes for a period a few years ago, some days being pleasantly surprised, other times finding a frustrating mad house that would make you afraid of birthdays.
I entered one day to find about fifteen residents sitting around a TV attempting to watch the Edinborough Tattoo Scottish bagpipe concert, sweet Jesus kill me now! It gets worse, not only was the picture bad, the sound to high and the content rubbish, but there was a mentally disturbed woman deliberately blocking the view. And there it was, a window to a possible future where I could potentially spend my last days IF I was well off, as this was a relatively nice place, the smell of cleaning products, opp shops and damp cardigans veiled in extra strength tropical rose or evening primrose.
So when weighing business ethics and morals and asking yourself if you should hand in the bag of money you found at the train station, don’t forget, money is freedom, it can’t buy happiness, but you can buy a yacht and anchor next to it. You may have either Inga the Swedish nurse massaging you in heat of the Tahitian summer, “ya you would enjoy the sponge bath now?” verses Sharyn and Gail telling you “drink your pear juice luv and we'll set you up in front of the tele for your favorite bagpipe show which we are playing again today.”
I would like to leave this world in a flurry of fireworks, like the 80 year old who’s family got him a sky diving jump for a birthday present, OUTSTANDING! He dropped dead on the way down from a massive heart attack, but that’s not the point, he went out in style, with the wind in his two strands of silver hair, not slowly shaking off a rusty mortal coil, lubricated badly with pear juice and incontinence to the sound of bagpipes.
Maybe it will be bliss? maybe I will start playing along with the pipers on my colostomy bag as conscious thought drifts into a haze I would liken to trying to find your cars keys, but being applied to all parts of life. The tender joins which are the memories of your life, crossed with the threads of time, criss-cross to show you the fabric of a big picture, the conscious mind. Eventually becoming frayed to single focus in time, without context, history or meaning.
So I tell my self, as I read bumper stickers on the highway of life, know thyself and to thine self be true, the time is now, suck every ounce of marrow from the bones of life, stay the course of your moral compass and then only regret the things you did not do.
I am off to make a pear juice Mojito, with cheers to chance and luck, a salute to my inevitable demise and mortality and an Irish slancha to all the good times I have been fortunate enough to experience. I hold no regrets and will fight my fears and comfort to keep it that way.
Jonathan Nolan
