The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead
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My friend’s dad passed away Monday night. He lived a great life of fifty-six years, and died having spent special time with his family by his side. In death, life seems more precious. More precious for me. More precious as we reflect on his life lived. Precious life.
Milt Shields has passed his ninety-seventh birthday with barely a hiccup. His physical health is impeccable; he played tennis and golf until his mid-nineties, and still swims a few laps a day in the neighborhood pool. He says he has seen a doctor more from 94 to 97 than he did in his first 94 years, yet only a colonoscopy has kept him back in recent days. His son, David, however, is not so healthy: he boasts an aching back, a receding hairline, a reconstructed leg and, most importantly, a birthday past fifty. He views his own physical problems as an indicator of his aging as he reflects on birth, life and death in his memoir The Thing About Life Is That One Day You’ll Be Dead.
Shields follows the four stages of life: infancy and childhood; adolescence; adulthood; and old age and death. In each stage, he weaves the biology of that life-stages, stories from literature and history, the well-matured life experience of his father and the days of his own fifty-one years.
In the first half of the book, Shields writes as though the glass is half-full. These young years bring life, hope and vitality, and Shields writes with a sense of longing for those years. In his own adolescence, his star athletic abilities were snatched from his life by an untimely injury. Hope is gone. When he begins writing on adulthood, the glass becomes half-empty. Life is no longer a wonderful gift, rather a curse that ends in death.
Shields views the purpose of life as reproduction. After children are born, life is lived on a downhill slope, speeding rapidly toward impending death. Shields writes as an atheist (raised in the Jewish faith), so his perspective (fear) of death can be understood in that light.
The biological implications of aging, along with Shields’ apprehension at moving toward death, yield the dark side to his writing. The scientific exploration follows his writing in verifying the decline of the human body after adolescence and early adulthood. Yet the evidence provides a fascinating glimpse into the complexity of human life and the changes we have seen in humanity from generation to generation. Did you know:
“You’re born with 350 bones (long, short, flat, and irregular); as you grow, the bones fuse together: an adult’s body has 206 bones.”
“Cardiovascular disease kills 40 to 50 percent of people in developed countries. Cancer kills 30 to 40 percent; car accidents kill 2 percent; other kinds of accidents kill another 2 percent.”
“A major new study of body weight and health risks by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Cancer Institute concluded that the very thing (a person with a body mass index below 18.5 — for instance, a man who is 6’ and weighs 136 pounds or a woman who is 5’6” and weighs 114) run the same risk of early death as the very fat.”
“Your IQ is highest between ages 18 and 25. Once your brain peaks in size — at age 25 — it starts shrinking, losing weight, and filling with fluid.”
From generation to generation, life changes and is increasingly complex. “In 1900, 75 percent of people in the United States died before they reached age 65; now, 70 percent of people die after age 65.” Medicine, diet and technology in the last century have lengthened our lives. Yet the proverbial “fountain of youth” has not yet been found.
Shields’ stories will draw you in. One biology fact will make you want to change your life habits one way. The next will push you the other. The wit and humor from lives gone by will make you laugh and think, and long for a vibrant life.
The thing about life is that one day you will be dead. How will you live yours?
Disclaimer: This book’s MPAA rating would be PG13. Shields is deeply honest and open — not dirty, just brutally honest — regarding human biology and sexuality.
AUGUST RUSH
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When our lives are rhythmically in tune with God, the music of our lives is played out to anyone around us who cares to listen. Maxwell “Wizard” Wallace (Robin Williams) says to young August Rush (Freddie Highmore), “[Music] is God’s reminder that there’s something bigger than all of us.”
August Rush grew up in a boys home, known as Evan Taylor. Separated from his mother, Lyla Novacek (Keri Russell), at birth by her over-protective father, both desperately wanted to know the other existed. Living a life of feigned existence and separation, neither pursued their shared passion for music. But an innate sense brought them back to music.
Evan begins the movie in a field, swaying in rhythm with the music of the wind saying, “I believe in music, the way that some people believe in fairy tales. What I hear came from my mother and father, once upon a time.” The movie also follows his father, Louis Connelly (Jonathan Rhys Meyers), working as a West Coast businessman, also avoiding his former life as lead singer of a band.
After Richard Jeffries (Terrence Howard) from the Department of Child Services checks in with Evan and the boys at the home, Evan decides that now is the time to find his mother. He sets off for New York City with nothing but the music of his soul.
When Evan first meets “Wizard,” he picks up a guitar for the first time and instantly shows off his musical prowess. “Wizard” wants to give Evan a new name, August Rush, and give him a platform to share his music. Sounds a bit like the Saul-to-Paul transformation in the New Testament.
After police raid “Wizard’s” hangout, August is left wandering the streets of New York. He hears music coming from a church and wanders in to find a gospel choir in the midst of their practice. He finds Hope (Jamia Simone Nash), a young girl in the choir, who gives him a place to sleep, teaches him about music and introduces August to the minister.
Up to this point, Evan’s music came from the heart. He didn’t have a process or a structure or rules. His music came out of a childlike innocence, innocent and pure. Sitting at a piano in the church, Hope asks him, “Do you know your notes?” August is caught off guard: “I’ve never seen them like that before.” A childlike faith can be caught off guard in the same way when introduced to rules and regulations of religion.
August’s musical prowess took the minister’s breath away, and the minister found a way for August to attend Julliard. Learning how to write music, he composes a full-scale rhapsody which his professor discovers. The professor passes the rhapsody onto the Dean (Marian Seldes). She called August into a board meeting, where they informed August that they wanted the New York Philharmonic to play his rhapsody:
August: How many people will hear it?
The Dean: It will be performed in Central Park, on the Great Lawn.
August: A hundred?
The Dean: Much more. Thousands.
August: OK, I need to play it to a lot of people. Lots and lots.
Even with this newfound knowledge about music, August has not lost his passion and excitement. He wants nothing more than to share the music of his life with as many people as he can. What if people of faith lived with that same eagerness to share their passion?
“Wizard” constantly reminds August of the importance of his music, its connection to his heart and the world around him: “You gotta love music more than you love food, more than your life and more than yourself…You know what music is? A harmonic connection between all human beings.” Our spirituality longs to be number one and that “music” in our lives will connect us to the world around us.
August asks “Wizard” where the music comes from: “I think it comes from all around you, really. It comes through us, some of us. It’s invisible, but you feel it.” August asks, “So only some of us can hear it?” and “Wizard” responds: “Only some of us are listening.”
Are you listening to the music this Christmas season? August found the music, lived the music and shared the music.
The music is all around us. All you have to do is listen.” – August