The Delete Button – Reflections on our own Death

The delete key on our computers, desktop, laptop, handheld and other devices is a powerful tool. One simple touch commands it to take anything we wish to eliminate to eternal oblivion.

An 18-wheeler almost did the same thing to me not too long ago.

Carefully ensconced in my lane on a major Atlanta freeway, out of the corner of my eye, I saw a huge truck moving into my lane. How I managed to maneuver out of its way, I will never know, but whatever I did delayed the delete key being pushed to a later time.

I do not know when that time will arrive or how it will happen, but it will, for me and for you. Someday the delete key connected to our existence will be engaged and do its job. One touch and we are outta here!

I once conducted a funeral for a friend of mine. He was 95 at the time of his death. He loved to eat Cuban sandwiches and Polish sausages. At the service of his final rites, he requested his family to play the classic Groucho Marx recording of “Hello! I must be going…” at the conclusion of his service.

What a great metaphor for our time here on earth. As soon as we take our first breath, we start to die. It’s simply the way it is. The way our Creator put us together demands that we not only take our place among the living but the dead as well.

But would we want it any other way?

There is a passage in the current edition of the Reform Jewish High Holiday Prayerbook, Gates of Repentance, that attempts to answer this question:

If some messenger were to come to us with the offer that death should be overthrown, but with the one inseparable condition that birth should also cease; if the existing generation were given the chance to live forever, but on the clear understanding that never again would there be a child, or a youth, or first love, never again new persons with new hopes, new ideas, new achievements; ourselves for always and never any others–could the answer be in doubt?

How profoundly beautiful and true this passage rings. Another way of looking at death is to understand it as the price of our life ticket.

As a rule, the greater the experience for which we must pay, the greater the purchase price. Life is the gateway to all experience. Thus the price we pay is the highest.

AMS