Mom's favorite topic

Mom did her usual rundown on who died and who would soon die when I visited her and Papa earlier today. As procedural as preparing an excessive lunch for one. The seamstress who did your sofa cover is gone. Your father’s favorite banker is dying of cancer. The hairdresser down the road died during surgery. I had to feign interest even if I didn’t remember who those characters were, and even if didn’t like talking about death.

But my folks do. They find themselves attending funerals with increasing frequency. That usually takes most of their social calendar. What else is there to share other than the latest plot twists in their favorite telenovela?

I don’t think the death talk is borne out of some anxiety about their own mortality. There’s pride that they can still enjoy their remaining years with their loved ones. They always boast of how well they’ve been eating and how diligently they take their meds. They talk about death a lot because they try to make personal sense of the loss of loved ones and friends. With each passing they evaluate their lives. Was the life of that departed as fulfilling and well-lived as mine ought to be?

This theme of death must end with a movie reference. Here’s a most memorable death scene from the 1990 French film, Cyrano de Bergerac, starring Gérard Depardieu.

Historians say that the real Cyrano died a banal death – some plank hit his head. But the playwright Edmond Rostand made it more dramatic. In the movie, the brilliant poet and swordsman who thought his shockingly large nose was reason enough for him not to be loved by the beautiful Roxanne, or even by the ugliest of women, took all of 30 minutes before he finally succumbed.

Cyrano: Let no one hold me up! [He props himself up against the tree.] Only this tree! [There is silence.] It comes. Even now my feet have turned to stone. My hands are heavy like lead. [He stands erect.] But since Death comes, I'll meet him standing. [He draws his sword.] And with sword in hand!

There’s no death like Cyrano’s in mom’s fave telenovelas.