The Thing About Life is That One Day You'll Be Dead

by David Shields

  All human beings have bodies. All bodies are mortal. Yours, too, is one of these bodies.

  In World War II, my father was assigned to Army Information and Education; his job was to lecture to the troops about America’s allies and enemies and send news releases to the hometown newspapers of the men in the outfit. If a private was promoted to Private First Class, my father would send a press release to the private’s hometown paper announcing that he’d been promoted for his “courage under fire” and “military bearing.” But when the radio battalion headquarters in the middle of the compound on Okinawa announced, on August 8, 1945, that the Japanese had surrendered unconditionally and would be signing the peace treaty later that day aboard ship in Tokyo Bay, my father went berserk and raced down to the mess hall, where he told the mess sergeant, Coleman Peterson, that he was taking over and would be serving breakfast to the 120 men in the unit.

  Sergeant Peterson told my father he’d lost his mind and would want to quit after the first six grunts went through the chow line complaining that the scrambled eggs were too hard and the pancakes were too thin. My dad told Peterson nobody, including Douglas MacArthur, was going to stop him.

  Peterson insisted on at least preparing the egg and pancake mixes. My father agreed, tied an apron around his waist, and when the first man came through the line, asking what was on the menu this morning, my father sang out, “Horseshit on French toast. No, actually, the V-J Day special: scrambled eggs, bacon, all the pancakes you can eat, and the strongest coffee on the island!”

  Apparently, though, my father is not immortal:

  On my most recent visit, he evaluated, as he always does, what kind of physical shape I seemed to be in and contemplated, as he always did, the potential safety hazards of my one-handed driving. He asked me, as he always did, whether Natalie had enrolled in swimming lessons yet—he was concerned that she’d wander into Lake Washington and drown—and when we went to a department store so he could buy a birthday present for Natalie, he made sure, as he always did, that I paid for it. He apparently wants to take his not very vast fortune with him.

  The next morning, when I arrived 15 minutes late to take him out to brunch, he was sobbing. Fearful that I’d perished in an auto accident, he’d called my hotel, 911, and even Laurie back in Seattle to see if she’d heard anything about my whereabouts. At the restaurant, he vehemently criticized the spiciness of the soup, which couldn’t have been more bland; he wanted nothing sharp to throw him off stride.

  Having not seen my father for several months, I was startled by his swift decline: he shuffled around his tiny apartment, which was almost empty, because of his new fixation with getting rid of nearly everything he owned; his breathing was loud and labored; his eyes were glassy and flat; a pouch of skin sagged beneath his left eye; a portion of his left ear had been excised in surgery to remove skin cancer; he ping-ponged back and forth between diarrhea and constipation; he often neglected to zip his zipper.

  Waiting for Sicko to start, he asked me when and where I learned the facts of life. The people in the row behind us convulsed into giggles, and though it seemed a little late to be discussing the birds ’n’ the bees, I had to answer quite loudly—his hearing aid wasn’t working well—that I consulted a variety of sources on the subject. Thanks to his malfunctioning hearing aid, he found the movie utterly unintelligible. Leaving the theater before the lights had come up, he took a bad tumble down the stairs, to the collective gasp of the audience.

  “I’m perpetually tired,” he wrote me when I returned home. “Used to be—until a year ago—I could swim a dozen laps. Can just about make 3 to 4 now. I crave sleep a lot. With the aid of sleeping tablets—Tylenol PM—I sleep in two sessions, from 9:30 to 4:30, then breakfast, then back to bed for a couple of hours, plus an occasional nap of one-hour duration. I used to go to the 18-hole putting green at Woodlake often, now indifferent to its lure. Haven’t gone in a couple of months. On the positive side, I still work out in the gym for 30 minutes. Usually on the stationary bike. Do that after lunch. Like a forced march. But I still do it and am glad I’ve still got the willpower. To sum it up, some of my most vexing problems are traceable, I’m sure—and so are you and you’re correct—to the passages of the years. Ninety-seven ain’t 79.” For my father, this very partial and begrudging acknowledgment constitutes a major declension.

  The Story Told One Last Time, from Beginning to End

  As soon as your reproductive role has been accomplished, you’re disposable.

  After sexual maturation, deterioration in peak efficiency occurs because, as Harold Morowitz, a professor of biology at George Mason University, says, “perfect order requires infinite work.” Also, deterioration builds on itself.

  In the late nineteenth century, August Weismann, a German biologist, made a distinction between “the immortality of reproductive cells, the cells in the body that carry genes forward to the next generation, and the mortality of the rest, which will age and die.” Death takes place, he said, “because a worn-out tissue cannot forever renew itself, and because a capacity for increase by means of cell-division is not everlasting but finite.”

  Once a body’s mission is accomplished, nature has little interest in what happens next. Reproductive life spans of members of a species work as perfectly as possible to match the time an individual of that species might expect to survive before dying. In other words, physiological resources go into reproduction, not into prolonging life thereafter.

  The force of natural selection declines with age. Natural selection has shaped human biology in such a way that aging and death become increasingly likely by the time you reach your 40s. If a disaster strikes a person who has passed the age of reproductive fitness, the consequences are by and large unimportant to the survival of the rest of the species.

  Nature favors the accumulation of genes that do beneficial things early in life, even though they might do harmful things late in life, since—under normal conditions—most animals do not live long enough for the harmful effects to cause a problem. The same general mechanism that protects against cancer protects against aging. Long-lived species, with their better cellular protection, get cancer later than short-lived species.

  The pineal gland is your internal clock. It knows how old you are, and it knows when you’re past your reproductive prime. As soon as it senses that you’re too old to reproduce effectively—around age 45—it begins to produce far lower levels of melatonin, which signals all of your other systems to break down and the aging process to begin. (Women’s larger pineal gland is another reason why women age more slowly than men, and it may be why they live longer.)

  These low levels of melatonin cause, for instance, your immune system to shut down and your endocrine system to produce fewer sex hormones. Lower levels of sex hormones in turn lead to the atrophy of sexual organs in both men and women, to a decrease as well in sexual interest and the ability to perform. At 90, my father’s equipment finally quit.

  In the late stages of adulthood, moths mimic the movements of juvenile moths, leading predators away from young moths and sacrificing their own lives, in order to benefit the species. What I’ve been trying to get to all along, in a way, is this: The individual doesn’t matter. You, Dad, in the large scheme of things, don’t matter. I, Dad, don’t matter. We’re vectors on the grids of cellular life. We carry 10 to 12 genes with mutations that are potentially lethal. These mutations are passed on to our children—you to me, me to Natalie. Aging followed by death is the price we pay for the immortality of our genes. You find this information soul-killing; I find it thrilling, liberating. Life, in my view, is simple, tragic, and eerily beautiful.

  Exit Interviews

  Asked what the meaning of life is, the paleontologist Stephen Jay Gould said, “We are here because one odd group of fishes had a peculiar fin anatomy that could transform into legs for terrestrial creatures; because comets struck the earth and wiped out the dinosaurs, thereby giving mammals a chance not otherwise available
; because the earth never froze entirely during an ice age; because a small and tenuous species, arising in Africa a quarter of a million years ago, has managed, so far, to survive by hook and by crook. We may yearn for a ‘higher’ answer, but none exists.” (Darwin on Darwinism: “There is grandeur in this view of life.” Stoppard on evolution: “I’ve always thought the idea of God is absolutely preposterous, but slightly more plausible than the alternative proposition that, given enough time, some green slime could write Shakespeare’s sonnets.”)

  Robert Wilkoske, who owns a wrecking company in Cheyenne, Wyoming, said, “Animals will fight to the death to try to survive. Even if it’s a rattlesnake swallowing a gopher. The gopher tries to get away, but after the snake gets ahold of him, he’s going down. That’s the way it is with a human, too. I’ve seen animals fight, I’ve seen animals fight when the odds were against them. They know they’re going to get whipped, but they’ll fight to the death to try to stay alive. It isn’t any particular thing we’re living for, just the instinct to stay alive. But I’m no authority.”

  José Martinez, a taxi driver, said, “We’re here to die, just live and die. I do some fishing, take my girl out, pay taxes, do a little reading, then get ready to drop dead. You’re here or you’re gone. You’re like the wind. After you’re gone, other people will come. We’re gonna destroy ourselves, nothing we can do about it. It’s too late to make it better. You’ve got to be strong about it. The only cure for the world’s illness is nuclear war. Wipe everything out and start over.”

  Woody Allen: “We are adrift, alone in the cosmos, wreaking monstrous violence on one another out of frustration and pain.” No punch line.

  Wilfred Beckerman, a British economist, said, “The chances of mankind turning out to be more than just a blip in the process of evolution are very small.”

  The rapper Ice-T said, “We’re here to stick our heads above the water for just a minute, look around, and go back under. A human being is just another animal in the big jungle. We have a lot of different instincts, and they’re all animal. We kill because we’re angry or need food. We have babies because it feels good and we want to care for other people. Once you have a kid, you look at the kid and see yourself again. You realize, ‘Oh, that’s why we’re here.’ Life is really short and you’re going to die, so you should leave someone else to keep his head above the water. Everything else is just passing time until the next generation, setting up shop. Just chill out and reproduce. Keep the species alive.”

  Nicholas Vislocky, the assistant superintendent of a cemetery, said, “In the beginning, being a gravedigger bothered me. All you see is the grieving family. You carry the casket. You imagine the person who’s in there. And the thing that touches you most is the kids when they pass away. Their caskets are white, for purity, and they’re smaller, only like three feet long. They didn’t have a chance to experience anything. It’s like they were robbed of something. When you see the small white caskets, you appreciate the short, split-second lifetime you have.”

  Shortly before his 97th birthday, when I asked my father what he’s learned over such a long life, he said, “The secret of a long, healthy life is to exercise every day even if it’s only for thirty minutes, and don’t let anything deter you from it.” When I explained that I meant not just how to live a long life but what it all amounted to, if anything, he shrugged and trotted out hoary “truths”: “There’s one comforting thing about the aging process: I’ll never have to do it again.” “Dying is easy. The least of us manage that. Living is the trick.” “On balance, the world is a much better place than it was in Brooklyn, New York, in 1910.” Which—the last—led him to consider what he might have achieved had he stayed in school and gotten his bachelor’s degree from CCNY, then a master’s in journalism from Columbia; perhaps he would have realized his fantasy: sports columnist for the New York Times (à la his hero Red Smith). This led to tears, though, so he cut short the discussion and said, “Let’s go for a walk,” which we did. He no longer plays tennis or golfs or jogs. He used to say that he could never imagine not being able to do at least five laps around Woodlake, totaling a little over a mile. Now he could barely shuffle his way around once, interspersed with frequent rests on benches.

  As he’d be the first to point out, this could partly be explained by the fact that, after rescheduling his colonoscopy several times, he’d finally had it done a few days before. Complaining all the way home about the “disrespectful” way he felt the nurses had treated him, he was mortified by how thoroughly he’d pissed and shat his gown during the procedure. The results: no cancer, no nothing, only a minor case of diver-ticulitis, relatively easily remedied, but now he’s obsessed and depressed about that (obsession and depression being indistinguishable for him—I’ve come to realize—from the life force).

  Notes for Eulogy for My Father

  In the early 1930s, my father worked as a minor-league umpire on the East Coast, teaming up occasionally with Emmett Ashford, who was something of a showman and who thirty years later became the first black umpire in the major leagues. Some people thought all of my father’s behind-the-plate antics amounted to little more than “white Ashford.” We’d go to Giants games not when Koufax was the competition or bats were being given away but when Ashford was calling balls and strikes. All game long, my dad would keep his binoculars on Ashford and say to me, “Emmett’s calling a low strike” or “Emmett was out of position on that one” or “If that guy gives Emmett any more guff, Emmett’s going to give him the old heave-ho.” Then I’d look up and Emmett would be giving the guy the old heave-ho.

  It wasn’t the major leagues that played at Golden Gate Park. It wasn’t even the minor leagues. It was something called the industrial league. The Machinists would play the Accountants; Pacific Gas and Electric would play Western Airlines. But they played with a hardball, they played for blood, their wives cheered like enraged schoolgirls, and my father was the umpire. He’d leave on Sunday morning, carrying his spikes and metal mask, with his chest protector underneath his blue uniform and a little whisk broom, with which to dust off home plate, sticking out of his pocket. I’ll never forget the first time I saw him umpire.

  It wasn’t a stadium at all but an immense field without fences. There was a diamond, though, and dugouts and a half-circle of stands. I stood behind the screen, watching Denny’s Restaurant play Safeway Market. Neither team meant a thing to me, and after a few innings I looked around for my father, whom I figured must be working the next game. Then I realized the big man in blue, squatting behind the catcher with every pitch, was my dad. In certain sections of the country, in certain leagues and stadiums, the spectators are expected to focus all of their economic and sexual frustrations upon the lonely figure of the umpire, but in San Francisco, in Golden Gate Park, on at least one Sunday in the summer of 1966, they didn’t do that.

  Denny’s Restaurant and Safeway Market weren’t playing up to par; my father soon emerged as the main attraction. When a batter took a called third strike, my father would parody the victim’s indignation. When a batter drew a walk, my father would run halfway to first base with him to speed things along. He was the only umpire working the game, so on balls hit to the outfield he’d run down the foul line to make sure the ball had been caught, and on balls hit to the infield he’d run to first base to be in position to decide. He signaled safe by spreading his arms and flapping them, as if readying for flight. He signaled out by jerking his thumb, and the entire right side of his body, down. Between innings he juggled three baseballs.

  He worked all day, four long games, 10 in the morning until 6 at night, and at the last out of the last game the fans applauded. It was only light, polite, scattered applause, and maybe they were clapping for the winning team, but to me it was a thunderous ovation and they were thanking the umpire. I stood up behind the screen and joined them. I cheered for my father.

  Two of the things I love the most in the world—language and sports—my father taught me to love. I
’m no longer much of an athlete at all. I have a bad back, tendonitis in my shoulder, a trick knee, I wear orthotics in my shoes to balance the unevenness of my legs, and I have a little pinch in my neck that’s been bothering me lately, whereas at 97 my father’s major ailment appears to be tennis elbow. He gets upset when it rains because that means he can only work out in the gym rather than walk around the track and then work out in the gym. He still swims most days. Until very recently he played golf and, occasionally, tennis. He’s the most vigorous person I’ve ever known. From his essay about a raft trip our family took down the Salmon River: “I was up at 6 the next morning and volunteered to gather the kindling and other firewood. The other members of my family snuggled in their sleeping bags and made it just in time for the 7:30 breakfast.”

  Since I was 6 years old, the first thing he and I have done every morning is read the sports page. One of my fondest memories is from about 20 years ago—the two of us sitting on his couch in the dark, listening to the radio broadcast of a Giants-Dodgers game; when Mike Marshall hit a three-run home run in the 10th inning to win it for the Dodgers, he and I looked at each other and we were both, a little weirdly, crying.

  Games have held us together, but also words. I’ve always loved his love of puns, bad puns and worse puns; admired his ability to tell a joke and a story. The day before my college commencement, he and I went on a tour of John Brown House at the Rhode Island Historical Society. On and on the docent droned, giving us the official version of American history. My father and I tried not to laugh, but as we went from room to room, we were in an ecstasy of impudent giggles. “Subvert the dominant paradigm”: so goes the bumper sticker, which has passed now into cultural cliché. In so many ways, though, he has showed me how to do exactly that: to question received wisdom, to insist on my own angle, to view language as a playground, and a playground as bliss. He showed me how to love the words that emerged from my mouth and from my typewriter, how to love being in my own body, how to love being in my own skin and not some other skin.