Hitchens

"When he was admitted to the hospital for the last time, we thought it would be for a brief stay. He thought — we all thought — he’d have the chance to write the longer book that was forming in his mind. His intellectual curiosity was sparked by genomics and the cutting-edge proton radiation treatments he underwent, and he was encouraged by the prospect that his case could contribute to future medical breakthroughs. He told an editor friend waiting for an article, “Sorry for the delay, I’ll be back home soon.” He told me he couldn’t wait to catch up on all the movies he had missed and to see the King Tut exhibition in Houston, our temporary residence.

The end was unexpected"

These words are from Carol Blue, Christopher Hitchens' wife, which she wrote in the afterword to his final book, Mortality. The paragraph amazes me because it shows a desire to continue living in the face of an inevitable death. Not a desire as in the wish to deny death, or a tearful grasping on in the hopes death will suddenly change its mind and leave you alone, but a desire to squeeze the most out of the last few days of life knowing that the end is soon. 

It's difficult for me to read this without relating it to my own life. Unlike Christopher Hitchens I don't have the knowledge (advantage?) of knowing when I'll die, even approximately. So what prevents me from living my remaining decades with as much curiosity and energy (mental if not physical) as he intended to live his last days? Is it the ambiguity of the end that holds me back? I wonder if it's similar to having a new roll of toilet paper - when you first use it, you're not afraid to use a few extra squares to wipe your ass, but as it nears the end of the roll the possibility of being caught without suddenly becomes more real, and you start conserving, even preparing a new roll before it runs out. 

So, to sum up, maybe life is just one big roll of toilet paper. 

I could use Carol Blue's words about her husband's vitality in the face of death as a call to arms to carpe my own diem and all that, but it's too clichéd and ridiculous and besides, it's not going to happen. But hopefully thinking about the death of someone like Hitchens will do me some good by at least reminding me that death is inevitable, if not tomorrow, and that, as Hitchens also once wrote, "the grave will supply plenty of time for silence."