Can we learn to die purposefully?

Read this article.  "Slipping Away" It is a terrifying life log of a young man with an incurable disease. See yourself in one of the two main roles of the story. Take a very long breath. Hope that your life will not make you live either role, then read my thoughts born out of imagining that nightmare.

Naturally, genetically we are programmed to live, almost at any cost. We spend all our life even before day one practicing staying alive. In most culture the "will to live against all odds" is glorified. If one said "life is overrated" one would probably be judged either suicidal or mentally unbalanced. But, perhaps, could we learn to be less attached to our own life to be better people, better siblings, parents, children to our counterparts in those relationships? If we could learn to value our lives less for ourselves and more for them?

It is lost in the darkness of history and of the history of phylosophy, forgotten in our modern cultural make up, but this is not a new idea. The Stoics beginning in the 3rd century CE elaborated a concept of a "virtuous life" where self sacrifice is ethically appropriate under specific, objectively definable circumstances.

An Indomitable Spirit

I could only wish that at 85 I will still have the undying curiosity to try something new every turn and even to recycle my own creations to make new ones.  That is the real test of commitment and detachment of the ultimate creative spirit.

My mother is blessed with that spirit and has shared her painting technique with friends and associates over the years.  The most recent time was earlier this year when she was asked to give a demonstration to the Artists Of South Whidbey (AOSW) on Whidbey Island, Washington.

Here you can see her presentation.

Note: The concept behind this presentation was one of the last projects my mother produced in collaboration with my father's multimedia production support in 2008.  It was updated in 2010 for AOSW.

Find more at her gallery  http://piapaintings.com

Last Comments on Al Messina - (one last lesson)

(If you came to see the slide show or read about my father, it is in the next blog below.)

Now I want to share with all of you the last gift my father gave our family, in case you want to take steps to give the same to yours. 

A couple of years ago my father became member of the People’s Memorial Association (PMA)  a Washington State organization that let him choose, ahead of time and for an agreed price, the terms of his final services and burial (PMA and Barton web sites have links to similar organizations in other states).

Three times in my life I have had to make or assist family members making similar arrangements: it always was an awful experience punctuated by sales pressure on the survivors to increase their budget and complexity of the choices. Not knowing what the deceased wished, at a time of extreme stress, the pressure is irresistible and the experience miserable for the survivors. My father made those choices simply and clearly himself. 

When the time came my mother was relieved of that worry and from PMA’s statewide roster we picked Barton Family Funeral Service in Kirkland.  There we were so lucky to run into Molly Rampage a kind and caring woman truly committed to relieving my mother’s pain and delivering on the choices my father had already made.  In minutes we handled a painful step and with her help (at no benefit to her) we also arranged the memorial service at The Kirkland Women’s Clubhouse that many of you so kindly attended. Heed my father’s lesson and do the same for yours; they will think as kindly of you as we do now of him. 

A final note: many people assisted my father in his last days and hours and our family in the days that followed. Our family thank you from the bottom of our hearts and acknowledge:
Linda and Carolin, Oncology Nursing Staff at U of W Medical Center
Dr. James Dean,     RNs:   Oncology Nursing Staff at U of W Medical Center

Joie Goodwin and the serene Kirkland Women’s Clubhouse

My Father - Al Messina (1/1/1922-8/20/2008)

Al's Photo & Favorite Music

What can I say in 3 minutes of a man of whom I could easily write a book?

To many that knew him; my father was a renaissance man that also retained a great sense of humor. To many a teacher’s teacher.

To my mother he was the immovable rock on which she built a life that befits her stoic character. After he retired he made supporting her and her artist career the mission of his remaining years. His greatest wish was that he could outlast her by a day so to spare her today’s anguish.

To those that trusted him, he gave unflinching loyalty to the point of taking a bullet not by accident, but in a calculated gamble to pursue safety not for himself, but for the group. When I met his commander 55 years later, he could not stop telling me how I exist against all odds.

To me he was a father in the warm and loving sense we all have one, but as I grew into adulthood he became even more than a best friend. He became the only one on earth that understood my drive and sometimes quixotic goals; the one that shared my sense of being, in this new country, always a bit of a stranger in a strange land.

He backed me to the end on a hopeless business venture because he alone understood that honor demanded it and finances be damned. We both loved Shackleton’s story and understood that against the slimmest chance of success it is one’s duty never to give up.

He was my Chief Editor for all I wrote and tried to publish – Sorry for you he did not get to edit these thoughts for today.

He was my Software Testing Department whenever I needed a partner to test the countless programs that made my professional career possible – Let it now be known: that was my secret.

He was my Research Department – Every day on my way home from the office I could call and ask “Se ghe’, what’s new today” and I got the news summary, analysis of politics, global economics, capital markets, global warming, peak oil. I often wished our president had ½ that much insight available.

He was my library – I never left Bellevue without new books and often got them in the mail. English, Italian, French were all in he game; latin and greek he just quoted on occasion. Engineering, architecture, economics, computer systems, art history, painting, photography, movie making, writing, philosophy, physics, classical music, opera and jazz, his favorite. For him, the whole of this added up to the wonder of our reality and consciousness and character.

Who but me had his personal Mensa-scale Socratic philosopher to teach endless curiosity, logics, reasoning, dialectics, objectivism and the irony of life and yet always hunting for teaching accounts of human courage and survival in the service of a grander purpose.

I had it all and so grand it was. So grand is the void now that will never fill.

Memorial

Al Messina (1/1/1922 - 8/20/2008)



Al was born 1-1-1922, moved from Italy to the USA in 1969 and retired in Bellevue in 1989. Wednesday August 20 he suddenly passed away with acute leukemia while surrounded by his family.
Family, friends and his airplane were his loves. He was a man with a wonderful mind, intelligent and inquisitive, generous and with a huge sense of humor; a polymath who lived to learn and understand and share his insights until his final moments.
A man who gave of himself beyond compare and lived to make a difference for all around him has now left friends and extended family around the world with a void that will be hard to fill.
His adored wife of 57 years, Pia, sons Marco (Darlene) and Andy (Valerie), grandchildren Alex, Sarah, Ali (Bill, Sadie, Mandy) and Ryan will try to go on without him.
A memorial service will be held Sunday August 24 at 2-5 pm at Kirkland Woman’s Club, 407 First Street, Kirkland 98083.
me@piamessina.com