Do people know when they’re about to die?
Most soldiers who’ve spent anytime on a battlefield would probably answer in the affirmative. Although science has never been able to explain 'what life is,' human beings seem capable of understanding when “it” is almost gone. What is remarkable is what happens in the minds of the dying in the fleeting moments before the inevitable becomes inescapable.
Despite Western cultural elevation of individualism, human beings are incredibly social animals. We don’t want to live alone and, most assuredly, we don’t want to die alone.
Irrespective of religious beliefs (all of which, by definition, require faith – the belief in something you cannot prove), none of us can say with certainty whether death is the end of existence. Psychologically, the closest thing we actually have to the concept of 'life after death' … is being remembered. Being remembered means that the ‘concept of you’ will live on. What you need, therefore, is someone who believes that the world would be a lesser place but for the fact of your existence … and can, therefore, be trusted to keep you in it.
So who can you trust to ensure that ‘you'll live on?’ Most frequently, it is the person that ensured that you’d live in the first place. Your mother.
At some point during pregnancy, a woman experiences the phenomenal insight that “I” is now “we” and that “mine” has become “ours.” What happens to the one, happens to the other. Such profound inter-connectedness leaves deep roots in the brains of both, roots that cannot be erased by time or space. As long one can remember the other, neither can ever be truly alone.
Image Credit: Wellcome Collection
Poetry can make wonderful gifts.