‘What’s the worth of one warm smile? Go and ask the dead man’

By David McElroy · October 23, 2011

There’s nothing like thinking about death to focus your mind on how you really feel about life. I’ve been thinking about death a lot recently — for various reasons — and it’s left me loving life even more.

A couple of people have recently talked to me about wanting to die. That hits me hard, because I see both of them as having the capacity to have long and fulfilling lives ahead of them and because it’s so different from how I feel about life.

At the risk of sounding obvious, the specifics of life can be terribly difficult. I’m certainly not where I want to be. I don’t have the love or money or position or achievements that I’d like to have. I frequently don’t know how to get from where I am now to where I’d like to be — how to bring the vivid picture in my mind into being. But I’ve never lost hope. When Death comes for me, he’ll have to carry me kicking and screaming if he wants to take me.

Another reason I’ve had death on my mind this week is because of the death of a baby in a family on my street a week ago. The little boy was born six or eight weeks ago with serious problems. They were problems that could be fixed with surgery, but he had to get stronger to survive the surgery. He never got strong enough, so he died. His parents never got to hold him until the last moments when the life was slipping away from his tiny body.

As I thought about these things again Saturday — the difference between people who see life as something to toss away and others who are devastated by the loss of life — I stopped at a small country cemetery not terribly far from here to think about it quietly. That’s the entrance to the cemetery looking back at the road. As I walked around, I couldn’t help but look at the tombstones and wonder about the stories of the people buried there. What were their lives like? Were they happy? Did they love other people? Did they do things with their lives that they were proud of? And did they love their lives as much as I love mine?

I have no way of knowing. I can only answer through the lens of my own feelings and thoughts since I’ll never know their stories or their feelings. I can imagine, though.

I saw adjacent headstones for two teen-agers who died on the same day in 1973. I assume it was a car accident or a house fire or something unexpected. Sixteen-year-old Jerry and his brother thought they had long lives ahead of them, but they were cut short on May 25, 1973 for reasons I’ll never know. What would they have done differently in the days leading up to that day if they had known they were about to die? What would they appreciate that actually took for granted?

I was reminded of the words to an obscure 1987 rock song called “Go Ask the Dead Man.” (The album from Mark Heard was released using the pseudonym Ideola.) It’s all about understanding the value of life by looking at the mundane things a dead man can no longer experience:

What’s the worth of one warm smile?
Go and ask the dead man
How bright the light in loved ones’ eyes?
Go ask the dead man
Where’s the charm in cloudy skies?
Go and ask the dead man
Oh — go ask the dead man

Who has eyes for an evening sun?
Go and ask the dead man
The smell of earth, the sound of storms?
Go ask the dead man
How intense is the lightest touch?
Go and ask the dead man
Oh — go ask the dead man

They say dead men tell no tales
But if you want to hear your own heart beating
Listen well, listen well
Go ask the dead man
Go ask the dead man

How potent is the joy of fools?
Go and ask the dead man
What price these diplomatic duels?
Go ask the dead man
What sorrow in the rape of rules?
Go and ask the dead man
Oh — go ask the dead man

I love life. I’m not ready to join those who’ve died. I’m grateful that I didn’t die at 16. I’m grateful that I didn’t die at 29. When I was younger, I believed — as most of us do — that the life that stretched ahead of me was almost endless. I realize now that it’s not. It makes me live each day differently than I did at the time.

I believe that when I die, my soul will move on to a better place. But I also believe that the God who created me placed me here for reasons. It’s up to me to find those reasons and make my life worthwhile. I want to experience love again. I want to experience having my own children. I want to experience the joy of knowing that I’ve achieved the purposes for which I was put here.

Part of that, though, isn’t about the so-called big things. For me, it’s about happy dogs and purring cats. It’s about noticing clouds and rainbows, such as the one I saw in this colorful sky in June. It’s about laughing and connecting with people you love. It’s about appreciating warm smiles, the evening sun and distant storms. Most of all, it’s about appreciating the light in loved ones’ eyes.

I want to live and appreciate the beauty and tactile wonder and emotional depths of the world around me. I look forward to experiencing the next life, but I’m going to appreciate everything I can about this one. It’s a precious gift God’s given to me. I’m going to hold onto it for as long as I can force breath into my body.

No matter what your circumstances are, life can be good. It’s worth living — and it’s worth living with an open heart and with open eyes.

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It hasn’t happened yet, but there’s a possibility that I might be taking in a fourth feline. A couple of months ago, a cat-loving neighbor asked whether I’d seen a “tuxedo cat” hanging out in the neighborhood. I hadn’t, but this guy eventually wandered past my house a few weeks later — and we haven’t been able to find evidence that he has a home. I’ve been giving him water and food for the last week and he finally let me pet him two nights ago. He’s purred for me two nights in a row and he let me take a low-quality selfie with him Thursday night. Tonight, though, he let me pick him up and bring him inside to look around. This went surprisingly well, as you can see from this photo. I don’t know whether he’ll be joining the family, but I’m certain that Alex, Oliver and Sam would vote no, at least until they get to know him. I’m trying to make certain he doesn’t have a home, but if he does join us, what do you suppose his name will be?

It turns out that the radical far left has been training “Antifa cats” to sabotage anything important to Donald Trump. Everything he did was perfect. Honest. It was all the cats’ fault. Arrest all the cats! This is the latest of my ridiculous satirical shorts. Please go watch it. Then “like” it and subscribe. Please. I’m begging you. (Too much?) Although a couple of the previous videos have had views in the hundreds, most have still been seen by fewer than 20 people. So I seem to be having trouble letting people know that page exists.

Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

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