Eulogy for Son :: Eulogies Eulogy

Eulogy for Son During the last months, weeks and days of the life of Hays Johnson, during that hard time of his illness, he was not dying. He was living. This may seem to be a matter of semantics or playing with words, but I learned from him during that period a lesson which I had previously only perceived in a fragmentary fashion. When a newborn utters its first loud wail, a sound which touches the hearts of the bystanders, it is perhaps an expression of regret that its stay in this beautiful world is temporary. Perhaps the baby knows what we often forget, that we are all ultimately terminal. I do not think for one moment that in his last days on earth Hays was in a state of denial or rationalization. He knew how sick he was. But he was determined to take the advice of the song: I'm gonna live, live, live until I die. With one important difference. The implication of the song is that one should take from life whatever one can grab before it is too late. Hays wanted to give whatever he could, and it did not matter to him whether his life stretched before him for decades or for hours, he was going to be one and the same, a person who held fast to his integrity, who had a deep interest in everything going on around him, who wanted to be quietly involved, who wanted to contribute in whatever way he could. There was to be a meeting at the synagogue a few weeks ago. He said to me: "I won't be able to make the meeting, but I should like to know your thoughts on it, and I would like to hear what happens." It was not a dying man who could not make that meeting, it was a man who was fully alive, who, if he was impeded by circumstances from doing what he wished, could yet find ways of taking part. Just one week ago I spoke to him on the phone. He wanted to know what I was doing, and on Monday, as I promised, I put in the mail for him the text of some lectures that he wanted to see. He spoke little of sickness or discomfort, and was as pleasant and cheerful as always. It was fun to talk to him, a man a week away from a long anticipated death.