My friend Walter (not his real name) and I were sitting having our usual Tuesday morning coffee and doughnut, talking, as we do, about all manner of things. I like talking to Walter because he is wicked smaht. Not the least sign of his smahtness is that he married a wicked smaht woman. But that’s probably a topic for another day.

Let me tell you how much I like and respect Walter. He had something bad happen to one of his eyes, which caused him to have double vision. Not the kind where stuff is somewhat blurred, and you sort of see two of everything. Nah, he actually saw two of everything. To compensate, he had to wear an eye patch, which was often black. Not once did I say “Aaaaar, matey” in his presence. I think that restraint says a lot about my like and respect for him, doesn’t it? I did refer to him as Cyclops, but only once and he wasn’t being very nice at the time.

But, back to our Tuesday morning coffee. Somehow, we got talking about the fact that we were going to die, as was everyone we knew. We were talking about death as if it were just another topic of conversation. That is, kinda casually. Not, I guess, “Death as the end of all things, and oh the horror,” but more like, “We’re all going to die sometime, and how come people so rarely talk about it?”

Of course, we do talk about it. We know we’re all going to die sometime, maybe in the next five minutes, but how many of us act like we could be dead in the next five minutes? Yeah. I don’t see a lot of hands raised.

Sure, we all have said at some point, “I know life is precious and could end at any time. Hell, I could walk out of here and get hit by a bus,” but wouldn’t we act differently if we really believed that? I don’t really believe I’m going to get hit by a bus any time soon, and not just because there aren’t actually any buses around here. It’s just … well, that sort of thing happens to “the other guy.”

Well, Walter and I both said we were pretty much OK with it. We’re both of an age, closer to 70 than 60, that likely puts it closer to the forefront of our brains than the backfront. Also, I suffer from … you know what, and he knows that I have it, so we bring that to the discussion.

He has an amazing analogy, though, addressing the fact that we’re all aware that death is in the future, but don’t really recognize the fact. “It’s like all of humanity is on a train going toward the edge of a cliff, with plummeting from said cliff obviously the endgame. And an announcement comes over the loudspeaker: ‘Attention, all passengers. We are racing to our doom. Please plan accordingly.’ And everyone hears the announcement, but doesn’t really react. Oh, one of us might say, ‘Could you pass me another one of those little sandwiches with the crusts cut off?’ or ‘I just read this amazing article in the paper,’ or ‘Did you see the Real Housewives of (Wherever) last night? Isn’t that one a bitch?’ But we don’t all get crazy like one of those old Irwin Allen disaster movies and start looking for a way out. At most, one of us might remark, ‘Hey. Did that guy just say something about racing to our doom? Oh, well. What’s on TV tonight?'”

As we were pretty much winding up our conversation, the man who had been sitting at the next table having his own refreshments, stood and moved closer to us.

“I have to tell the two of you,” he said, “it is very refreshing to hear two adult men talking about death the way you two just were. I mean it. We should all talk about it like that, but almost no one does. I don’t know why that is. But it certainly is the case. Thanks again.”

And with that, he was gone. As you know, things like this happen to me quite often but I think Walter was taken a bit by surprise, but in a good way. The man didn’t say anything about listening in on our conversation, which was fine, we weren’t making any effort to be quiet. I think if we were all more open to talking to each other like that — to thanking people we don’t know for things that they say in public — the verbal possibilities would make leaving the house in the morning more fun.

Jim Arnold is a former copy editor for the Kennebec Journal and Morning Sentinel. To read more about his journey through cancer, visit his blog, findingthepony.blogspot.com.

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