THE DEATH WATCH-THREE

Tuesday is here and I still have not heard from the doctor’s office about an appointment so I guess I’ll work on my “Estate Plan”. There are a few things that I should try to take care of so that my loved ones won’t be burdened. I can’t believe that I have to talk to a lawyer to prevent my wife from having to pay inheritance taxes on my meager retirement funds.

One of the problems I will have to face is the veritable plethora of long faces on people who have learned of my condition from my wife. I tell those I want to tell in the way I want to tell it but invariably I get the “We’re praying for you …” and I lack the nerve to reply honestly.

There is a quote from Shakespeare that I recall from my youth that seems apropos at this time. First I have to tell you the story of my recollection. When I was about ten I was at an all boy’s summer camp in Maine and I was in a play called “The Valiant”. I played a priest in a prison where a prisoner was about to be executed and my roll was to walk ahead of the prisoner while reading from the Bible, on the way to the Electric Chair. My only line in the play was the quote, which until recently, I thought was from the Bible.

"Cowards die many times before their deaths,
The valiant never taste of death but once."

--From Julius Caesar (II, ii, 32-37)