Back when I was in high school, my favorite teacher introduced me to the Apple Macintosh SE and taught me HyperCard.
Jason “Jay” Fogleman used HyperCard extensively for everything from lesson plans and notes to scrapbooking interesting articles from the internet.
Over the years, I’ve tried to use OneNote, EverNote, Instareader, and Pocket for bookmarking and scrapbooking articles I’d like to revisit, re-read, and use as references. Given the ephemeral nature of the internet and software, trying to find and use a single solution over the decades (1991-2021) has been exhausting and futile.
Anyhoo, long story short, a friend of mine lost her father this week. She was literally talking to him on the phone as he was in the hospital for COVID-19. Ten minutes later, her father was dead. No warning, no one saw it coming, he simply “gave up” and expired. My friend is ten years younger than me, her father was roughly ten years older than me. Late 50’s is NOT old, and far too young to be dying from a pandemic.
So her conversation with me about “I never saw it coming, we never knew, I didn’t know today would be the day I lose my Dad” stuck with me. I read several articles on Kaiser-Permanente and Johns Hopkins about the misconceptions and social memes that people (particularly Americans) have about death.
One persistent misconception is that people believe Death is a switch. A person is either Alive-and-Healthy or Dead. A strong number of studies indicate that Death is not a binary state of health, but a long continuous spectrum from vibrance to doorpost. Our health, persistence, and endurance are as likely in our heads as in our health. Some people bleeding out from shock trauma die rather quickly, some endure and overcome despite losing multiple limbs. It’s not a switch. It’s not a binary state.
I don’t have an answer for my friend. I still don’t know why her father, who appeared to be in relatively good health despite being hospitalized for coronavirus, decided to expire not ten minutes after talking with his daughter.
But I do wonder about that spectrum, where he fell on it, and the why of it all…