Tag Archives: John Donne

Your Obituary, The Only Certain Story

In between summers when I was in college, I worked as an intern on my hometown newspaper. My first job was calling funeral homes to find out who had died. Obituaries were an important section of the paper.

I would be sent down to the basement where the newspaper’s “morgue” was located to bring up past stories about a recently deceased citizen. This was before the days of digital storage. The morgue was a kind of library of past news articles.

At my young age, death seemed remote, but it dawned on me that the only certain story about anybody was their obituary. For the famous, it already was stored in the morgue because death, even more than taxes, was certain. Someday it would be used. As a person accrued honors or elective office, the facts became current news, but they also entered that person’s obituary file.

When a famous (or infamous) person dies, the story is already written, now waiting in an online file, except for the immediate circumstances of death.

My current hometown newspaper carries the obituaries of most who die in our area. If we haven’t known the deceased since childhood, the obituary surprises us with information we didn’t know about former marriages, former jobs, former honors, association with historic events.

Some may not wish to think of death’s inevitability. For others, it acts as a reminder to joy in the gift left to us.

“Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.”
(John Donne)

 

The Tolling Bell

The latest headlines tell of yet another weather-related tragedy. Over a hundred people were killed by a tornado in Joplin, Missouri. We feel sorrow for the affected individuals and families, as we felt for the victims of tornadoes in Alabama and other states a few weeks ago.

When those earlier storms missed the people of Joplin, surely no one would have blamed them for experiencing relief, but now this second wave of fierce tornadoes has hit their city.

At the moment, I’m sitting in my “safe” home in the Pacific Northwest. So far this year, our main complaint is the cold, rainy spring. But I know disaster could strike here, too. In a moment or two, nature could unleash tragedy: earthquake, tsunami, or perhaps a volcanic eruption.

What’s the message for us when we read of tragedy in another part of the country or the world? The message is that those people are us. Because one day it will be us, if not in some natural catastrophe, then a personal one. No one who lives an average life escapes “storms.”

We help victims with prayers, money, and  other resources as we are able and as appropriate. More than this, we understand our own vulnerability and are inspired to live our short span of life as unselfishly as possible.

The poet and priest, John Donne, wrote:

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.