Joseph L. Kagle, Jr. Essays

“Just when you think that death has taken a day off, the grime specter comes to the door again. It does make you conscious that ‘Life is like a river rushing to the sea.’ We live life fuller, we search for peace more passionately because we know the end of our story. We wish to leave a better world for those we love who are left behind. As we get older, more friends leave the scene. We miss them and in memory we live more fully.”

     Sitting in St. Paul's Episcopal Church, thinking about a tender but strong-willed life which had ended after a long illness, I thought about the image of life as a river.

I thought particularly of an in­dividual life on that river as a del­icate raft which lulls through gentle, still waters which some­times turn to the turbulence of stressful, raging white water. We all know where the individual rafting journey will lead. It never really ends. The river empties into the sea.

Jane Dossett Brooks joined those vast waters, but before she did she learned some last lessons. Lifetime learning is not just a catchy phrase. It is a fact. Learn­ing never ends.

Jane told friends that she had learned two important lessons in those last days: the lesson of pa­tience and the lesson that we must rely on others at times in our life. The lesson of patience was learned, I am sure, by the whole Dossett circle of families.

We all like to imagine that we do not need anyone else. When the waters change from smooth to rough or the journey begins to ap­proach the sea, we find truth.

The great 13th-century mystic Islamic poet, Shanz of Tebrez, wrote this seemingly simple poem:

I you he she we

I you he she we

       In the garden of mystic love­rs^:, I you he she we

In the garden of mystic lovers, these are not true distinctions

i you he she we.

For any moment in the river of time. What a revolutionary idea. There is no separation between us. In that time, Christians, Mos­lems,_, Jews, Shamen and Buddh­ists were warring. Just like now.

Would understand

 Jane never warred with any one but held her independence high. Near the sea she had to rely on the love of others. She would have understood "i you he she we" as not being true distinctions. Another friend, Jerry Burks, un­derstands that now.

Last week I sat in a crowded Kiwanis' luncheon to honor Jerry. He makes no secret that he has Lou Gehrig's disease. Like Jane, he understands the reality of the sea more than the rest of us in the shallows and the rapids.

     In fact, he said after all the ac­colades were deservedly given that he always loved seeing Gary Cooper play Gehrig on the big screen. He stood movie tall at the end in Yankee Stadium, pro­claiming, "Today I consider my­self the luckiest man on the face of the earth."

    Jerry said, "For years, I did not understand how Gehrig could make that statement. Now, I do. I am the luckiest man on the face of the earth." Jerry knows humor is a wonderful companion to take along on this river journey.

    No one wants to reach the sea because it is unknown. The river is fun. It is the ride of a lifetime. But also no one dies if memory is rich and clear.

     Jerry joked with the room of admirers and friends: "I am glad all you came. I am happy that my wife is here and my two children. I regret that my mother could not make it. She is the only one who would believe all the things that you have said about me."

    On the journey, none of us knows how the river will run be­yond the next canyon wall and the next bend that the river will take. When Jane journeyed to deeper waters, one of her young nieces carried a basket of 200 folded pa­per cranes to the cemetery.

     Each member of the family took one color-filled crane and dropped it into the grave. The image of multiple-colored paper cranes flying out to sea with someone we love adds luster to the image of the waters of life. Maybe three of the cranes are named patience, others and hu­mor.

“Why is dying such a surprise? I think that we expect things to continue as they were in the ‘are’ time and projecting into the ‘then’ time. We know that is not the case or true but we live in that fantasy. So when death comes again, we say, ‘Go away, I am not ready now.’ It is Woody Allen’s line, ‘I do not mind dying. I just don’t want to be there when it happens.’ Dying is part of the journey of peace but we don’t want to think about it right now.”