He not busy being born…

This week another old (old established, not old aged) friend of mine died.    I hadn’t seen her in at least a couple of years – mainly because I have been living out of the country, but I still considered her a close friend. She’s the third one in the same group of friends who have died since I left England. Shit, I’m too young (at 39) to be scanning the obituaries already. Their death doesn’t upset me; death is inevitable – it is the one thing you can count on in life. What does bother me is that none of them died of old age. Cancer got Ruth, Jim had a heart attack, and Bob… Well, Bob died as he lived – with an element of mystery: he was found at the bottom his stairs, but as he’d been dead for several weeks before they found him, the exact cause of death was – and still is – unknown.

Thinking about all of this reminded me of a conversation I had with a group of friends (which may well have included one or more of the aforementioned dear departed) some time back. We were just shooting the breeze, and one of the questions that someone threw out there was, “How do you want to die?” Most of us had similar replies: “Peacefully in my sleep”, “Of old age”, “Suffocated between Pamela Anderson’s breasts”. Whatever. Mine was simple: “By my own hand”. Silence. Everyone looked at me as if I was some kind of suicidal maniac – you could almost see them scanning the room to make sure there were no sharp objects within my reach. But I meant it. And I still do.

What could be better than being able to choose the exact moment of your own death? Being able to prepare – both in terms of making sure your debts were paid and your affairs in order, and in terms of being able to mentally prepare yourself; to be able to say your last goodbyes with conviction; to not be caught unawares. What could be better than that? My friends asked me, “How?”, but they were missing the point. The exact method is irrelevant. Being able to control the moment is the important thing. People who commit suicide are always thought of as suffering from depression, but for me, if I do manage to die by my own hand, I’ll die a happy man…