Morbid Thoughts

Let me start off at the very beginning by saying in all earnestness that I don't believe that I'm dying. I think that I'll be around for enough years that those closest to me will be wishing for my demise.

So, a few more years, anyway.

But seeing that I have no crystal ball and nobody has yet determined what's going on with my lungs, and I could get hit by a 10-ton truck tomorrow, there's no telling how long I, or any of us, really, will be around.

Lying awake in the middle of the night, after a serious coughing fit woke both me and DW up, where the hacking was so severe and unrelenting that I thought my head would split open, and where I exiled myself to our spare room so that DW could get back to sleep, my mind turned to dark thoughts.

What if my condition is serious? What if there is no cure and that the now five different inhalers are doing nothing?

I started with a red and a blue inhaler that weren't particularly effective, and after receiving the results of my chest x-rays, my doctor moved me to a green inhaler and moved the red inhaler to the maximum dosage.

The results of the chest x-rays also prompted my physician to contact the respiratory specialist, with whom she had already referred me, and see if I could be put on a priority list.

I was seen a few days later.

The specialist listened to my lungs and essentially ruled out pneumonia but suspected that it could be bronchitis, though he didn't want to stake any claims on either hypotheses. He ordered a CT scan and a lung-capacity test, and drew me a new prescription for another, stronger inhaler to replace the red one.

I could continue to use the green one, he said.

I don't think I'm dying, but since my visit with the specialist, since I've started using the latest inhaler, my coughing has worsted. I find myself short of breath just walking around the house and I have very little energy.

Lying awake at night, trying not to cough, massaging my aching head, I turn to morbid thoughts, and this is what I've decided:

I don't want a casket. I don't want an urn. I don't want to be buried in the ground nor turned to ashes.

I don't want a headstone nor do I want a nameplate. There will be nowhere that a person can go to look upon my name.

I want no funeral. Instead, my survivors can organize a party at a nice pub—one with beer that I would want to drink, myself. One that had fine malts and great wine. And non-alcoholic beverages for those who don't drink.

I'd want some photos of me to be displayed in a slideshow but more than anything, I'd want my best photos—the ones I've shot—to monopolize the slideshow. After all, they are just as much a part of who I am as are the photos of who I was.

I'd want singing. Maybe some karaoke?

As for my remains, I want to be placed in a cardboard box or a burlap sack. Something biodegradable. I don't need clothes.

I want to be taken out to nature at an approved place where that nature could just do it's thing. No muss, no fuss, and totally green.

Yes, these are dark, morbid thoughts, but so many people die unexpectedly, without plans, and it is left to others to decide what arrangements are to be made.

If anything, writing this out, as I lay awake, at least my coughing has stopped.

For now.

An old tombstone at St. Andrew's Kirk, North Berwick, Scotland (taken in 2010).