"What we fear of death"

Just got back from a wonderful 2-night vacation in Ashland, Oregon, where Plosswood and I saw three plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, ate yummy food at a downtown restaurant situated near a babbling brook, and fell blissfully asleep on a wooden bench at a Japanese bath garden (the place is said to  "create deep relaxation and rejuvenation" -- well, that's true).  


So why am I thinking about Death and Loss?  Maybe because autumn is arriving here.  Maybe because my mom, who loves Ashland and used to attend the festival with us (we were such a happy little threesome!) just can't go anymore -- she's too feeble and she's too confused.  Maybe it's because one of her long-time friends just died in Austin.  Maybe because, at my age (I'm 57) so many of my peers' parents are dying, and own dad died in January.  A childhood pal just lost her father-in-law, after having buried her mother about a year ago.  "Isn't this a sad time of life?" she asked me.   Yes, it is.


In Measure for Measure, Claudio, facing execution, is very afraid of dying. He says:
Ay, but to die, and go we know not where;

To lie in cold obstruction, and to rot;

This sensible warm motion to become

A kneaded clod; and the delighted spirit

To bathe in fiery floods, or to reside

In thrilling region of thick-ribbed ice;

To be imprisoned in the viewless winds

And blown with restless violence round about

The pendant world; or to be worse than worst

Of those that lawless and incertain thought

Imagine howling --- 'tis too horrible!

The weariest and most loathed worldly life

That age, ache, penury, and imprisonment

Can lay on nature is a paradise

To what we fear of death.

As always Shakespeare brings things into focus -- I hadn't even realized till I heard Claudio's speech that Death had been hovering in my thoughts.   It's always there; sometimes near, sometimes far, but always there.