You know the wonderful Gertrude Stein-Alice B. Toklais-story? The one where Alice asks Gertrude, as she lays dying, "Gertrude, what is the answer?" and Gertrude responds, "Alice, what is the question?"  Well, it doesn't happen that way.  

People's final words just aren't all that profound.

My father, on his deathbed, cancer eating his once two hundred pound body to nearly half its weight, signaled me to come close to him. His eyes penetrating mine, he gathered his last bit of energy and whispered, "Bedpan."  

He died moments later.  

My mother lived with us in the final stages of congenital heart failure. By the end, she could barely walk on her own, barely breathe without an oxygen tank, yet she managed to write me a note the night before she passed. It read:  "Wayne , there's an odor coming from the bathroom sink. Fix it."

And people wonder why my world view is a little off center and my sense of humor so cynical. It's not that I'm insensitive to life's most sacred moments; it's just that I don't see much of a difference between the sacred and the mundane. 

Contrary to myth, people aren't at their best when dying. And that's the way it should be. We shouldn't look to death for dignity and honor and answers to our most profound questions.

That's what living is for.

Author's Biography

After teaching college writing and literature for twenty-five years, Wayne Scheer recently retired to follow his own advice and write. 

Some of his stories have appeared in Prose Ax, Flashquake, Bovine Free Wyoming, Bulk Head and Sugar Mule. He lives in Atlanta, Georgia, with his wife. 

E-mail Wayne at Waynes7@aol.com

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