Surprise is very rare in our lives. Birth is our first true surprise.

Imagine, after nine months (more or less) swimming around in amniotic fluid, growing into a human form, perfectly happy with all your surroundings, you are thrust into a world of light and noise and — surprise — of breathing air to sustain life itself. Of course, you are going to cry and scream, both in protest — and surprise.

When I was born in May 1944, bursting forth six weeks prematurely at 4.5 pounds, I envision my own surprise. To make matters more surprising, my mother refused to breastfeed (like many others of that time, and even now), and I was circumcised, obviously against my best intentions. Couple the surprise of being born with the puzzlement of what happened immediately afterward, and you have a newborn in search of a good trial lawyer.

If I had only known, it would have made a great class action lawsuit — millions of circumcised, nonbreast-fed baby boys sue parents for outrageous treatment just after being born. The opportunity, of course, was lost. Both of the principals are now deceased, and I somehow survived their stewardship into a life I would not trade with anyone else on earth.

To be a white male in the 20th and 21st centuries is not someone to be pitied, despite all of my own bad choices, failings and evidence of flawed existence.

So what about the true nature of surprise in life? Everyone has your own story.

When I was 25 years old, my two sisters, Eileen and Anne, engineered a surprise birthday party for me. When I came home from work at a daily news paper in upstate New York, late at night in 1969, a large group of people awaited me, and then a cake appeared, with candles.

On the icing were the words:” Happy Birthday. F–k You, Denis!”

So, in blowing out the candles, I said to all present: “F–k you all, too!”

Almost no one knew what I was talking about, and the moment passed quickly. That was my one and lonely surprise party, and it was a lot of fun despite the rocky beginning.

Being present at my children’s birth was a true surprise, both for me and for them, I’m sure. We already knew they would be twins, so that part of the surprise was missing. On Feb. 2, 1979, at 11:30 a.m. Eliza found her way through her mother’s birth canal and joined the human community with a yelp. Her twin sister, Eleanor, was in a breach position, and had to be dragged feet first into the world. She had a broken collar bone and her lungs took a couple of days to begin functioning normally. At least they were breast fed, and suffered no more trauma than occasional toe prick to check their bilirubin levels.

But all the surprises in life do not equal the last one: death.

When I was much younger I wrote poetry, especially when I was feeling insightful and morose. That’s when I wrote the lines:

Birth surprised me then Death, surprise me again

It would make a good epitaph for me or anyone, so I thought then.

We all die. We all fear death. To imagine death to be a birth experience is not a bad thing. It can take away the fear. Most religions provide ways of coping with death. Heaven is portrayed as a great place to be; hell a great place to avoid. My problem with heaven is that I would probably run into my two worst critics — my father and my grandmother — and therefore spend eternity trying to avoid them.

I am not Christian, even after being raised Catholic (eight years of nuns in elementary school, four years of Jesuits at Georgetown University). I applied the analytical tools I learned in all that schooling and turned myself into an active nonbeliever.

So, for me, death is a surprise. At my age (67), it can come at any time and can take any form. A quick exit with a stroke or heart attack. Or something. Roughly half the obituaries I see in the Kennebec Journal are for people younger than me.

And for all my preaching about physical labor and good food as the key to a healthy life, I can imagine a few snickers out there if I fell flat on my face in the front garden. And if there is a reality beyond death, I just might join in the laughter.

Denis Thoet owns and manages Long Meadow Farm in West Gardiner. www.longmeadowfarmmaine.com.

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