What is wrong with the facts, insofar as we fully
understand them, of biology? Amethyst did not get an autopsy, but she died
having had a diagnosis. She had chronic renal failure. The organs of the body
do not exist in isolation from one another, but are a part of a system.
Long-term problems with the kidneys, caused (maybe – who’s to say she didn’t
get too much antifreeze over the years?) by long-term problems with the teeth
and gums, led to problems in the liver. Cats are designed to ‘take a licking,
and yet keep on ticking.’ They are predatory carnivores, meant to kill or be
killed. They don’t generally complain. They hide their frailty, because
complaint and frailty is not a successful strategy in a hostile world. She lost
strength and weight because her chronic conditions diminished and subverted her
drive to take in sufficient nourishment. She died because her toxicity became
too great. She died of massive, catastrophic systemic failures, and her heart
and lungs were the last of her internal organs to go. She was aware, and put
her head up in response to my presence only a few hours before she died. As I
have noted, she died laying on her right side, her legs partially extended, her
claws not retracted. Her eyes were wide open, pupils dilated. The room was dark
at the time of her death. Her mouth was open in a pant. As the heart and lungs
gave out, her consciousness was lost, and her brain cells rapidly died. The ATP
could no longer be carried away from the muscles, which contracted into rigor
mortis. That is the biology, as humans basically understand it. Certain
specialists will have a deeper cellular, chemical, systemic, and molecular
understanding. Yet death still retains a sting for the remaining witness.
The death of brain cells in humans can result in some
spectacular phenomena, and those that survive catastrophic cerebral incidents
have reported these. Dolphins and Whales have bigger brains than we have. They
also die. Are we, as a species, so obtuse that we think these beings do not
also expire with Technicolor mental functions? Death might be biologically
deprived of a metaphysical victory for the being that has just “died.” Given
the relativity of time and space, the fluidity and complexity of the reality we
exist in, cannot the brilliance of a final consciousness be experienced as
happening “forever?” A moment is an eternity. This, too, is covered by the
Requiem in German by Brahms: “in the blink of an eye we shall be changed.” (It
is really hard to beat the word “augenblick” for brevity and expressiveness.)
But then Brahms sets the text about the ‘dead being raised incorruptible,’ and
I have no defense for that concept. It is the concept of the ‘rainbow bridge.’
I would be willing to believe that the last moment of consciousness is
perceived as an eternity, and that the eternity of the moment would depend on
the mentality of that specific moment. I would also be willing to dismiss the
whole idea as science fiction. Perception is as impossible to pin down as any
other article of faith. I am certain that the animals we humans choose for
companions have a form of perception. This is true for almost all living
things. I can’t quite extend use of the term “perception” when it comes to
plant life, protozoan, and viral life forms. A cat may have a final perception,
though, that it may experience as an eternity. Amethyst may be waiting still
for me to return, but I can’t quite picture her romping in an afterlife with
other animals. It is more likely she’s back in the Honda, heading for
California, but this is a stretch. I am not willing to believe in life after
death, particularly not the re-inhabiting of the re-constituted or idealized
form of the body. Death’s sting remains. It is the fact of an irremediable loss.
Across the ages of humanity, death’s sting has had the power to shock and
stress us.
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| Tod, das ist Dein Seig. (Death, there is your victory.) 7-23-2009, 5:30 AM |
The mentalities that Julian Jaynes describes in the
ancient Mesopotamians and Greeks were shocked and stressed by death. Lacking
the capacity for narrative thought, the ancients heard the voices of the dead
and were instructed by them. One of these ancient civilizations “worshiped”
their cats. The Egyptians mummified and entombed cats (among other animals) as
beings that had a place in the afterlife. Does this mean that the ancients
heard these animals’ voices? Did the royal cat have a commanding role? Does
antiquity have an answer? One great lesson that one comes away from Jaynes’
masterpiece with is that the mystery of human mentality has undergone radical
development. I cannot imagine, though others might, even though I’ll grant the
power of death and, particularly, grief to shock, myself having a complete loss
of my narrative mind. Amethyst died and
her personality is lost to me forever except for the persistence granted it in
my memory. My memory will end when my brain cells die. I’m sorry to upset the
mind body philosophers, but that’s my take. I’m out of my element in this
discussion, and besides…you’ll need to cut me some slack. I just had a death in
the family.
