Dear Family & Friends,
If you are reading this, I have successfully made my transition to be with my Heavenly Father. I have Lived, Laughed, and Loved. I have shared most of my life experiences & lessons with everyone I know with the intention to help those without a voice. I am overjoyed that I was able to touch as many lives as I have. Believe me when I tell you that I suffer no more, and I am in a much better place. My ancestors and I have a LOT of catching up to do...
Always remember, life is what you make it. Make it your best...you only live once.
I love you all forever,
La Vonda R. Staples
--Thank you for this, tf.
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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Oluwatoyin Adepoju <ovdepoju@gmail.com>
Sent: Thursday, April 27, 2023 1:13:17 PM
To: usaafricadialogue <USAAfricaDialogue@googlegroups.com>
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Paul Woodruff: My death is close at handPowerful
--On Thu, 27 Apr 2023, 5:18 pm Toyin Falola, <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu> wrote:
--A piece by an outstanding colleague of mine….
I wrote two similar pieces, "Transition to Nothingness" and "Death at Dawn" I wrote my first memoir at the age of 50 in anticipation of death. Here I am, 20 years later but I was in "heaven" last February.
Opinion
My death is close at hand. But I do not think of myself as dying.
By Paul Woodruff
April 27, 2023 at 6:30 a.m. EDT
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(Jon Han for The Washington Post)
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Read by the author|Listen to Paul Woodruff6 min
Paul Woodruff is a philosopher, translator and poet who has taught at the University of Texas at Austin since 1973.
How often do you think about death? "Every third thought," said Shakespeare's avatar Prospero in the last line of the last speech he gives in Shakespeare's last play, "The Tempest," aside from the epilogue that follows the play. My friends say they think of death at least as often as Prospero. I do, too. If we think about death so much, we ought to know what to think about it. Philosophy is supposed to have answers, but the answers we hear most often from philosophers are not good for us. "Live every day as if it is your last," we are told. "Remember that you are on the way to death each day."
A friend recently wrote an email message with this line in it: "Paul is dying of a lung infection." He had meant it for someone else, but he had misdirected it. That sentence infuriated me. I do not have a lung infection. My death is close at hand, however, because of a lung condition called bronchiectasis, and I am on oxygen day and night. But I do not think of myself as dying. I am living each day with as much life as I can put into it. For me, that means going to bed each night planning at least one project for the next day — something worth getting out of bed and living for. As I think of dying, I make each day a time for living, for having something to live for.
What kind of project is worth living for? Not a project I could complete today. Worthwhile projects spread out over time. Writing this small essay and finding someone to print it will take at least a week, and today is only the first day. I will make sure that the last day for this essay will be the first day for something else. Thinking of death, I want to live every day as if it were the first for something.
Living as I do, with projects that continue over time, I can be sure that my death will cut me off before I finish something worth doing. I want to be cut off when I die of something I care about doing — not from thoughts of death alone. Unless I am in unbearable pain, I should be able to live right up to the last moments. Here is an inspiring (although slightly gruesome) example: Under bloody Queen Mary, Archbishop Thomas Cranmer, the author of the lovely Anglican prayer book, was burned at the stake for his protestant views despite signing false confessions of faith in Catholic doctrine. Even as the flames licked up around him, and his death was moments away, he was very much living (not dying) when he put his right hand into the heart of the fire to punish it for signing false confessions.
I know I will die soon. But must I be miserable about it? Why not find a cause for joy in each day? Some corner of my mind always knows that sad thoughts lurk behind my projects. But my dying will be much harder on my loved ones than it will be on me. Survivors often think they have failed to keep their loved one alive. I want my survivors to know that death is not unwelcome to me, although I want to be living each day. There's nothing wrong with dying. All the best people in history have done it. Let foolish philosophers see themselves as dying every day. Thinking of death, I choose life.
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Lincoln University
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Listserv moderated by Toyin Falola, University of Texas at Austin
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