In preparation....

Until recently, I have only ever been able to view death as an instant moment in the time of someone's life. Never have I been able to put into perspective the thought of having to prepare oneself for an oncoming end to their life.

What goes through a person's mind when their life has been given an expiration date?

Socrates approached death calmly, it would seem, viewing it as a coming enlightenment of the soul. We are not all Socrates though. Sometimes we do not have the freedom of time to accept death with open arms and an open mind. However, when we do... how will we handle our death?

My roommate recently experienced an uncle passing away. I found his situation to be interesting. Originally, this man was given about 6 months to live. Then something dire, that I cannot recall, occured and he had only days to live. Within those final days, my friend called me several times for support. He had never seen anything die before and was terrified with what that would be like to watch , if he happened to be in the room. Thankfully, my friend never had to experience that. His uncle was discharged from the hospital and sent home. There, he was able to fill out his final moments in this life as he saw fit. And what does he do? He watches Godfather I-III twice, eats his fill of hamburgers (as he was denied them in the hospital), and sat in view of his beloved orange grove. What went through his mind when he was given his expiration date? How did he prepare his mind for death? Was he simply happy with how life had gone up to that point? Did he not think that his cancer was robbing him of any precious moments to come? Life experiences missed out on? Did he wonder where he would go? Or was he happy to just be, until he was no more?

Returning to my roommate's terror in the possibility of watching someone die, honestly, what would it be like to watch a soul leave a body? I find the whole idea as terrifying as my roommate did. The entire experience caused him to question the possibilities of the immortal soul and life
after death. Do they exist? This question was at the forefront of his mind for the beginning of this semester, and mine as well.

Another friend of mine witnessed the life of Errol, the recent victim of the shooting outside Friar Tuck's bar, pass from this world. Not the moment of death, mind you, but saw him before and after he died in the arms of the bartender who held his head in her lap during his final moments.
He said the experience put into perspective his own mortality as well as the immortality of the soul.

I personally have a strong belief in the immortality of the soul. If I weren't seeing out these eyes that I have, what eyes would I be looking out of?
When bringing in the Cyclical argument addressed in Phaedo, questions come into mind. If the soul brings life into a body, can one soul be individual from another soul? Is the personality of an individual imprinted upon a soul and passed on in some way? Or is a new soul formed upon conception?

Some songs that were thought provoking during the course of this blog...

Long Time Traveller
The Wailin' Jennys

This is a soung about passing from this life to the next. Where do souls go?
First verse:

"These fleeting charms of Earth, farewell , your springs of joy are dry. My soul now seeks another home, a brighter world on high."

What Is A Soul?
M Ward

I couldn't find a recording of the song online, but I attached the lyrics. Essentially, questions about the nature of the soul are addressed here.

Perserving the soul through communal memory

I found this reading particularly difficult to get through after loosing a friend on Monday night. For the last couple of days, I have been thinking on the subject of death and the consequences of an individual's passing. Therefore it is interesting to contrast my own personal beliefs about death and the soul and that of the Phaedo's soul, which is immortal, reoccurring, and ever existent. Like Socrates I am unsure what comes to an individual after death, but I am sure about what happens in their absence. My community gathered to mourn the passing of my neighbor, Errol. At least a hundred people came to be with one another in our grief and confusion and it got me thinking about how the Phaedo talks about the soul. At the very beginning of the Phaedo something Socrates said really struck me. He argues, "I am cofident in the belief that there truly is such a thing as living again, and that the living spring from the dead, and that the souls of the dead are in existence, and that the good souls have a better portion than the evil." For me, death is the final frontier. Put me in a box or an oven, I won't know the difference because I believe death is the end of each of our individual existences. But after Errol's (or as I call him Scooter's) wake last night, I started to think maybe Socrates has teased out something essential about the souls of the deceased. Last night, I watched the living spring from the dead. In his families sadness, in our sadness as friends, we sprung to life at Errol's death. Even though our emotions are anger, sadness, and despair, they define us as the living. While it is not what Socrates is arguing, I would say that the way death results in emotion, which enlivens the living is a way that "the living spring from the dead." Socrates continues by saying that "the souls of the dead are in existence." This is surely true as even in death, Errol still controls and affects the world of the living. Because the memory of Errol lives within those who knew him, he never resigns to death. Finally, Socrates argues that "good souls have a better portion than evil," and again I must agree with Socrates. Those who were good in life remain longer in the living world. The more individual you touched in your lifetime, the longer your memory will be preserved and cared for. Errol touched many lives and this is why his death brought many mourners. His spirit is alive in us.

I know that I am bastardizing the argument that Socrates is making here but his teachings on death very easily lend themselves to this argument. There is something immortal about the soul and whether it is physical or metaphorical the dead living amongst us. Those that are left behind in the living world give life to the dead through their memories and in this way souls are immortal.