Die Like A Hero Going Home

"Sing your death song and die like a hero going home." Tecumseh

The day my mother died, after the early details had been handled and the adrenaline wore off, I looked out at traffic on a wide, featureless boulevard and thought: It goes on like nothing happened? You pass away and the lights are still red, green and yellow? A voice in my head was whispering: If I go down, this traffic light routine has got to stop.

INSPIRATIONAL OBIT-LIT AND DEATH DISCOUNTS

I didn't consider that I would die until recently. It was a possibility, sure. I wasn't in denial. I spoke at funerals, found dead friends on Facebook, had a memorial altar for my parents and grandparents. Death was real, but I was a busy man.

I grew angry when the local newspaper began interspersing obituaries with regular news stories. I’d be reading about an interesting crime and, turning a page, I’d be faced with the sweet face of Christina Arnold, loving wife and mother, 1947–2021.

1947: that’s my generation.

Older generations, they could die, but not us. Not me, anyway.

To prove I wasn’t in denial, I opened the computer file marked "Will." I updated finances, preferences for the disposition of my remains, my end-of-life celebration requests, summed it all up for my daughters and hit Save.

I stormed around for an hour, upset with everything. I was reacting to the idea of dying. During COVID, the contents of my head were my main entertainment on many days. The past was a frequent if unstable visitor: the selfless man of accomplishment and grace was also the immature fool who drove people away; every ascent had its shadow. There wasn't much time to re-make my life's narrative, to sell people on my new, improved and final self.

I attempted to fix all of this, writing apologies and explanations, the will reflecting that the writing would be posted on a website. I included the names and email addresses of those to whom I had written something. I had much to explain. I also made my case against those who had exhibited unfairness, hypocrisy, harsh judgment — these went in a separate section. Maybe on my deathbed I’d hit “upload” and shoot my rage into the ether as my last act in this world. That made things seem a little better for a few minutes.

The death theme intensified:

I could identify a death-related piece of mail at a sideways glance — cremation discounts, lavish cemetery plots, coffins in the finest wood to repel moisture and rodents. Life insurance policies grew more creative by the day. It was shameless, really. Just this crap alone made me not want to die so they wouldn’t get my business.

AARP now included 50 year-olds as members, building their empire like greedy hustlers, giving away blood pressure sleeves. My blood pressure was fine until you pissed me off gloating over your latest inheritance tax triumph in D.C.

At the hardware store I avoided Weed-Wacker Wednesday/Super Seniors Savings Day. Silver-haired hordes showed up for $2 hammers and BBQ innovations. Checkout took forever with the small talk and the careful scrutiny of the bill, but impatience is considered bad form on WWW/SSS Day.

I couldn’t avoid the obits, however. I wrote a letter complaining. The newspaper editor wrote me to explain that good people cared about their neighbors and were soothed by the sweet send-offs.

A THOUSAND YEARS

The medical reporter on the radio said: Dr. de Grey believes the first person who will live to be 1000 years old is alive right now. I imagined a toddler receiving an implant, followed by a lifetime of aging thwarted by designer chemistry and 25th Century precision nutrition. There would be brain function supplements, immune system strengtheners, calcium infusions, cell membrane reinforcements, electrical revitalization nodes, weekly infusions of iron-rich artificial plasma for the blood.

I started to get excited. How about being in your twenties for a century? Or two centuries being as wise and focused and still physically sublime as I had been in my fifties?

There was a flip side: Could you get Alzheimer’s at age 200 and live for 800 years remembering no one, re-learning basic tasks every day? Or would you be expelled from the program and left to die within weeks of going cold turkey from the advanced health regimen? Heartless, but you wouldn’t know it. You’d have Alzheimer’s. There were many questions: medical ethicists would be our new celebrity class, modern techno-philosophers and chemo-theologists trying to reconcile paradoxes that had never been imagined. I was already planning an age-based legal defense should I commit a crime at Age 375.

Could you have sex until you were 900? There were sure to be some discoveries that would make for a whole new experience. Would it be illegal for a 725 year-old to have sex with a 40 year-old? Dirty old man would have a whole new dimension.

Money would be involved. You can bet Bezos, Musk, Zuckerberg et al will buy their way to the front of the line. Right now, though, spots could be up for grabs. I believed it: I could live to be a thousand.

THE PLAN

How could I convince the selection team I belonged on the A-List?

It was like applying to be on Noah’s Ark. I represent……Everyman: smart, conflicted, generous and selfish, warm and aloof, a grown-up and a little boy, a student of religion and an atheist, plus ..........

I’d appreciate having my life lengthened. I don’t want to die! It scares the hell out of me. I’d cherish every extra minute I received. I would be in service to humankind. I’d take up recycling.

In late summer I turned 66. That sounded young if 1000 years was a full life span. I calculated using a factor of 12: if I would normally have lived to 84, 12 times that was 1008, close enough. Twelve orbits around the sun was a year of aging. At 66 I was the equivalent of 5 1/2 years old, kindergarten age, when I did feel immortal.

Where do I sign up?

Dr. Aubrey de Grey was a one-man ambassador for the 1000-yr. idea. He was somewhere in California but hard to reach. With no options, I paid my first visit to my Medicare physician for a check-up.

A nurse asked me a few questions, took my vitals, then lifted her fingers off the keyboard and looked at me.

‘No trouble, no complaints, you’re 66 and feeling fine,’ she said, doubt in her voice.

‘I get postcards from you about preventative health,’ I explained. ‘So I came in.’

She was trying to read me. ‘It's a female doctor,’ she confided.

‘That's fine,’ I said.

She finished my profile, left the room. Soon Dr. Jordan entered, a striking brunette with a commanding attitude, accompanied by a male intern introduced as Dr. Small, a scruffy Scotsman wearing a green soccer jersey under his lab coat. Small looked like he had been pulled in here to provide male perspective against his will.

‘You’re Donn Harris?’ Doctor Jordan asked, flipping through the blank chart. ‘Never seen me before?’ she asked, looking at the chart. ‘Online there’s a photo,’ I offered, ‘but you look different.’ She assessed me for a second with an odd expression, then returned to the paperwork. Finally she demanded, ‘Is there something specific you want?’

‘Yes,’ I said, and both turned to me, ‘a referral to the anti-aging clinic.’ Dr. Jordan froze, her pen in mid-air, looking at me as if I were an alien. Small coughed and hacked into his elbow. ‘You have …….. signs of aging?’ she asked. I mentioned 1000 years but she waved me off, answered a text, then left abruptly. Small shrugged; then he sent off a text, smiling at me conspiratorially. 'Shouldn't be long,' he said.

A male physician rushed in, glancing around the room as if he couldn’t see us. The mid-morning glare on the buffed floors may have rendered me and the intern indistinct. The physician was youthful, sandy-haired, very tan. His eyes finally adjusted and settled on me. Then he looked to Dr. Small, who said: 'Everything checks out.'

‘Everything checks out,’ Doctor repeated. ‘What kind of dosage do you want?’ he inquired, producing a pen and a prescription pad from his pocket.

‘Of what?’ I asked.

‘I’m assuming you want the daily dose,’ he continued, beginning to write. When I didn’t respond, he stopped and looked at me. ‘Cialis, right, the 3mg daily dose? Performance on demand? Isn’t that what we all want?’

‘Sure,’ I said, thinking it couldn’t hurt.

'Good choice,' said Dr. Small.

‘OK, here you go,’ the doctor said, handing me the prescription. He was Dr. Jonas Keith, Geriatrics. ‘Something more?’ he asked, his eyes probing me.

‘Yes,’ I said, a little flustered. ‘I came for the anti-aging clinic ……. they say the person who will live to be 1000 is alive today. I thought ……..'

Now the geriatrics specialist was scrutinizing me. I put the prescription away quickly, thinking he might take it back. He looked to Small, then back to me.

‘Who am I to question what you want? But I don’t know about the BS science, and I don’t usually discuss politics with patients,’ Dr. Keith confided. 'But that de Grey guy is an actor, he’s no scientist. See the Nurse on the way out and don’t let them intimidate you,’ he advised. 'In Geriatrics we get the best because elders have influence. I mean, you’re our parents. What am I going to do, charge mom $4000 a month for meds so I can take the profits and go big game hunting in Kenya?’

I was given an appointment for the Wellness Clinic for 9:30am the very next day. ‘We want you to be seen right away,’ the Geriatrics receptionist told me, proud that she accomplished this. ‘We didn’t realize ………’ she began, then trailed off. She handed me a card with time and place filled in, then asked: ‘Will you give me a 5 on the evaluation you’ll get by text?’

‘Out of 5?’ I teased, but she wasn’t smiling.

‘I got you the appointment to Wellness the next day,’ she defended herself. ‘And if you didn’t like Doctor, that’s a different problem. I re-scheduled something else and he got here quickly. The survey is about me,’ she insisted. ‘Not a rude doctor or ....... whoever. Me.’

Her name was on an employee ID badge she wore on a lanyard around her neck. ‘I can give you a 5, Gretchen, not to worry. You were very helpful. You’re a ten!’ I gushed.

‘Watch it,’ she warned. ‘A 5 is fine.'

A THOUSAND YEARS PART II

That night I read an article reporting that the Board of Aubrey de Grey's Foundation had placed him on administrative leave. A female colleague had come forward with allegations that he suggested she should have sex with potential donors. A second woman, an MIT prodigy who was a minor at the time, said de Grey wanted to discuss his active sex life with her.

A Board member asked: What good is an extended life if it’s led immorally?

I was sunk. They would be investigating potential subjects now through a moral lens; I would be scrutinized. Incidents involving me would emerge and I would be rejected. This was Judgment Day, just as the Bible promised.

I mindlessly probed the Internet. I clicked on a YouTube music video that I vaguely recalled. The orchestral pop tune was titled “A Thousand Years.” The singer was in a dark candle-lit space, but soon the image pixelated into an outdoor wedding. It was a scene from the first Twilight vampire movie, spliced into the video of the theme song. Kristen Stewart was led to Robert Pattinson at the altar, and the handsome vampire looked so filled with joy and love, that I almost fell out of my seat ……. Robert and Kristen were a real-life couple, and this was years before Kristen had been photographed in the arms of another man, the tryst publicized everywhere, and in this video she looked so innocent and timid, and he so enraptured and perfect and not a day over 120, their beauty a bittersweet magnet, drawing me in with every note of the music, with every step. I recalled the day that the photos were released. All his riches could not erase the images. It was painful to watch.

There he stood, the future unknown. The music hit a crescendo and crashed; the video faded to black. A thousand years of precious life, right. It was the same old crap: betrayal, secrets, pain.

I had my own debilitating moments. Could I bear them for a thousand years? Time heals, but some things creep back, and stay. Did I want to bear those pains for a millennium? What was I doing, flirting with eternity?

BOOTLEG WELLNESS

I slept poorly, troubled by my unworthiness for an extended life.

When the alarm rang at 8am I awoke listless and scattered. I got lost on the way to Wellness, arrived seven minutes late. ‘That’s OK, son, relax,’ Dr. Gold soothed me as I stumbled in. White-haired and slow-moving, he could have been 85.

The restricted access area behind reception was a large, disorderly child's play space. I was back in kindergarten.

‘Taken a Personality Inventory test before?’ Doc asked.

‘A bootleg version,’ I answered, ‘when I was a teenager.’

‘They're all bootleg,’ Doc said. ‘I have one they want me to give you.’ He patted a folder on the table.

We agreed that he would leave me for a few hours while I tackled 476 True/False questions. ‘Do you know why you’re here?’ he inquired.

‘This isn’t a lead-in to the anti-aging clinic?’ I asked stupidly. I had no idea what was going on. I was like a pinball in a broken machine, smacked around by flippers operated by a cackling sadist. He brought out my file and showed me the referrals written by Dr. Jordan and her staff, and quotes from Dr. Keith - compiled by Gretchen.

Dr. Jordan had written: ‘Delusional, fixated on living to be 1000, didn’t think we'd find that odd. Angling for potency drug. Needs to be evaluated.’ She had spent all of three distracted minutes with me.

Other staff's comments: ‘A drive for a heightened experience — maybe make everyone squirm to get their high evaluation marks — something off about him.’

‘They’ve red-flagged you,’ Gold told me. ‘Possible Narcissistic Personality Disorder. Hard to get rid of that diagnosis. You’ll be offered more help than you probably want, or need.’

‘What’re you going to say about me?’

‘Healthy as a horse!’ the wise old doctor said. ‘ Could live to 500.’

'I'd take that,' I said.

‘I know you would,' Doc said, almost soothingly. 'Donn, answer these questions honestly. There's a built-in Truth-O-Rama function. Don't get clever.’

At 10:15 a receptionist arrived, and Doc strolled out into the bright early autumn day.

TRUE/FALSE x 476

Now I was alone in the strange room, facing an eternity of True/False statements, the results possibly influencing a millennium of life. I still held out the irrational hope of immortality.

As a teenager I had taken a nomadic break from high school and in Denver I ended up in a clinic where a bored post-hippie shrink had administered a similar test, sat 15 feet from me at a desk doing a crossword puzzle. In 2021, I recognized the first statement right away.

#1: My father is/was someone I admire/d.

- Way to ease me in, I thought.

#7: It matters to me if colors seem to clash.

#19: I have told lies when I had no apparent reason.

- I always have reason to lie, but maybe it's not apparent.

#93: I am not responsible for the things that happen to me.

I stood up abruptly, my body stiff and cramping. I paced to work out the physical kinks and to escape the muddle of my thoughts; the former improved but not the latter. Of course if things “happened to me” I wasn’t responsible. Did I take responsibility for my life? — was the real question. I circled FALSE.

# 126: I seek solutions when problems occur.

#201: My mother is/was a strong person.

#322: I deserve what I have gotten in my life.

How could anyone possibly answer that? It surely was a Truth-O-Rama question tied to #93 -- infuriating! I was wearing down now.

#449: What my father taught me about the world turned out to be true.

#476: The law of averages rules; things even out in the end.

………. I left it blank. Things even out? Give me 500 years, maybe I'll know. I was sweating now, out of breath. My head lolled forward, limbs lost feeling …………

………… and I awoke sometime later with my face stuck to the formica table top; perspiration and residue from Play-Dough and Kraft Glue had formed an adhesive and I could not move my face -- my skin would tear if I pulled too hard. I twisted my cheek a bit to see what was in my vicinity. The table around me had been cleared. I thought I heard Doc Gold in the back office, whistling.

‘Doc,’ I cried, ‘I’m stuck,’ but he did not hear me. Panicking, I gripped the desk hard, pulled my face up and pushed on the table. The table shot off in one direction, crashing into cabinets set against the far wall. I slid in the other direction on my side, coming to rest in a fetal position like a modern dancer at the end of a dramatic movement.

I opened my eyes to see Doc looking down on me stoically, with only a slight shake of his head. He helped me up and we went into the back office.

EXAM RESULTS

We were eating oatmeal cookies and sipping lemonade and I began to wake up.

Doc handed me the exam results, scored by an app and printed in attractive color on glossy paper, as if I were being informed that I had won a time-share condo in Cabo San Lucas.

I had almost no indications of Hypochondria, Hysteria or Gender Dysfunction.

My Harm Reduction score was very low though, meaning I was unable to steer myself away from trouble or stop obsessing about things that hurt me. Social Interaction was surprisingly negative given the low scores in Hysteria. My worst areas were Proportion and Judgment — priorities confused, balance off, bad timing, contradictory choices: a troubled man.

On a desktop flipchart, a laminated card demanded: What evolutionary adaptation are you developing? A filter, I hoped: I was too raw; or velocity control, a slow-down mode I could activate when things got to warp speed.

‘A very unusual profile,’ Doc said. ‘When I first read this I thought you had tried to outwit the Truth-O-Rama.’ He turned the hand-out to page 4, where the number 96 was prominent in a red circle stating the scores were valid. I really had tried; I wanted to be a good boy, when I thought it could get me a chance at immortality, when 66 was really 5 and I was back in kindergarten.

I read the computer commentary, flipped to the color coded graphs — very pretty, but I didn’t recognize myself. ‘I’m not going to make it on to any 1000-year selection list, am I Doc?’ I asked.

Doc Gold looked saddened by my question, and took off his reading glasses to look into my eyes. His were beautifully blue, deep and weary. They held the weariness of a man who cared for all humanity, where I was worried only about Donn Harris, as self-centered as ever. I still wanted that piece of the world I believed was mine, and it wasn’t cooperating. It never had; for a time I was able to fight it and grab my piece temporarily, but those days were over.

‘Is that what you really want?’ Doc asked me. ‘To live 1000 years?’

I took a beat and told him something as close to the truth as I could summon right then: ‘I don’t want to die.’

‘Me neither,’ he said. ‘But we probably will.’

I drew that in, the profound finality that had been the one certain outcome. When my children were born, each of them, I had the one thought I couldn’t avoid: I was going to have to say goodbye one day. It filled me with deep, crushing sadness every time the snake of a thought slithered in. Then we got busy with the so-called important stuff of life and I tried to keep death from my mind but it was always there, a dark corner to avoid each minute of life. Somebody may live to 1000, but it wasn’t going to be me, for a thousand reasons. Aubrey de Grey didn’t believe it — I recognized his self-sabotaging behavior. I had seen men mask their professional failures with idiotic personal ones, an easier judgment with which to live. And so that dream was over. False hope was still hope, went one argument, but you had to die before learning the truth to make that work. So I was back at the beginning.

‘I am going to tell you something,’ Doc Gold asserted. He sensed my internal reverie had wrapped itself up. ‘It may sound presumptuous, as we’ve just met.’

‘Go ahead, Doc,’ I encouraged him.

‘I don’t think you wanted to live 1000 years,’ he surmised, ‘as much as you wanted to finish your story by being on that list.’

That held the ring of truth, would even out all the ragged ends of my life, telling the world — Whatever you thought of him, he was worthy, he made the cut.

‘Maybe I ought to go to work on that,’ I told the Doctor, standing, still dizzy. ‘Even if there isn’t a list.’

‘There’s no list, Donn,’ he advised. ‘Do better on that Harm Reduction score, you'll be OK.’

‘Judgment and Proportion?’ I asked meekly.

‘They would take a little more time,’ Doc Gold reasoned.

I lifted my lemonade, made a toast: ‘To the next 1000 years,’ and drank from a kindergartener’s plastic cup, the smell of immortality immediately familiar.

HERO GOING HOME

I drove home on a highway that moved quickly. At the exit we were backed up for a few minutes: I saw police cars, a maintenance crew, a man being lifted high on a crane in a service box. A few cars were released every few minutes, and shortly I was the front car, a cop directing traffic giving me the stop signal with his hand. He walked over, leaned in my window. ‘It’ll be just a few minutes,’ he said.

‘What happened?’ I asked.

‘Been happening all over the county. It got dangerous in places, lights switching colors, crazy stuff. This one ran through a few quick cycles and then died a few hours ago.’ We stared up at the worker in the box, disassembling the traffic light as it swayed in the breeze.

'All right,' the young cop said, receiving a signal from his partner across the street, ‘you can go.’ I eased into the street, caught the repair scene in my rear view mirror. The man in the technician’s box appeared to be floating in mid-air.

I was going home. I had nothing in particular to do: no explanation to craft trying to explain away my sins. Something would come along to occupy my time, but there was no rush. I was alive, and oddly elated that there was a traffic light crisis. My head kept pumping out thoughts without much effort on my part, and the universe seemed to be listening. Many things were possible, once I dumped crazy ideas like living for 1000 years.

What did I think I was anyway, a vampire?