Memento Mori

Memento Mori:

My sister recommended this gallery of the dead. The photos came from a hospice, and were taken in pairs: one before, and one after death.

The photos are respectful, but the accompanying text hides nothing of the horror -- and, sometimes, the peace -- of dying. What sorts of things give peace? What sort of man and woman can die well, and what sort dies hard? Confer the experience of those who have religious faith with those who are famed for their personal strength at that hour when personal strength fails.

A memory of death is keenly important to also remembering to live a good life, now, while you have the chance. This concept has a long and high history not only in the West, but also among the Samurai of Japan.

Lord Tennyson wrote, of the knight Geraint and his lady Enid:

And there he kept the justice of the King
So vigorously yet mildly, that all hearts
Applauded, and the spiteful whisper died:
And being ever foremost in the chase,
And victor at the tilt and tournament,
They called him the great Prince and man of men.
But Enid, whom her ladies loved to call
Enid the Fair, a grateful people named
Enid the Good; and in their halls arose
The cry of children, Enids and Geraints
Of times to be; nor did he doubt her more,
But rested in her fealty, till he crowned
A happy life with a fair death, and fell
Against the heathen of the Northern Sea
In battle, fighting for the blameless King.

That is a phrase we do not often hear: "He crowned a happy life with a fair death." It is a good concept, and a meaningful one. It is wise to think, now, not only of the fact that you have to die, but of how you want to die.