Diana Wynne Jones died (of lung cancer, the stories say.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For reasons that aren’t really that important, she’s another YA author whose work I first ran into as an over-40s adult, and immediately fell for, and sought after, and read and re-read.\u00a0\u00a0 Her books made me laugh, scowl, worry…I don’t remember if I ever actually cried while reading one, but my breath came short and I had to turn pages really fast sometimes. \u00a0\u00a0 That, to me, is one of the signs of a good book–as being re-readable many times is another.\u00a0\u00a0 Her books were certainly re-readable.<\/p>\n
She died at the same age my mother died.\u00a0\u00a0 That’s pure coincidence, but when it comes to matters of life and death–birth dates and ages at death–you notice these coincidences whether you want to or not.\u00a0\u00a0 She died of cancer.\u00a0 My mother didn’t–she died of chronic renal failure that led to heart failure eventually; she lived 32 years past the “dead in six months” prognosis she was given when I was 13.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 But friends of mine have died of cancer…and one of them I sat with as she died, in a roomful of friends (we took turns holding her, as she seemed more comfortable that way, and we sang to her.)\u00a0 Another coincidence that means nothing but sticks out in my mind: that dying friend’s\u00a0 last name was Jones. \u00a0 Others have died at a distance, where I couldn’t see them one last time, but could mourn them right here, in the depths of my memory of their younger selves.<\/p>\n
When I worked in the local EMS, and the rural clinic,\u00a0 I saw a fair bit of death–the young, usually from trauma; the middle-aged from trauma, sudden cardiac death, early stroke; the old from stroke or heart attack or cancer or just getting too damn tired of life…unacknowledged suicides of those who didn’t want to go into a nursing home, and one murder by spouse tired of caring for bedridden spouse.\u00a0 (If you’re going to choke your bedridden spouse to death, best not to do it with a cut on your hand that’s been stapled up rather than stitched–the staples leave defining marks on the neck.)<\/p>\n
I saw the results of a foolish belief in immortality in the young whose carelessness ended with their blood and brains smeared on the asphalt or over the tables and floor of a bar.\u00a0\u00a0 I saw the results of genetic accidents in the sudden deaths from aneurysms and enlarged hearts that hid inside apparently healthy bodies, in infants born with cystic fibrosis and other inheritable conditions.\u00a0 The results of uncontr0lled emotion in those who had been shot and stabbed in fights over nothing worth dying for.\u00a0\u00a0 And in those of the age then that I am now…the erosion by aging and its diseases of the life they had known for the half century or so before that.<\/p>\n
We all know birth is a death sentence.\u00a0\u00a0 We all know the time between birth and death is what we have–however long or short.\u00a0\u00a0 How we spend that time–what we do with that time–defines us (and defines us differently to different people.\u00a0\u00a0 The hero of the revolution to followers is the dastardly traitor to those displaced by the revolution.)\u00a0\u00a0 And as we get older, the reminders of our own personal, inescapable, mortality become more frequent and more intrusive.\u00a0\u00a0 A stutter now and then in the heart that once beat smoothly at any speed necessary.\u00a0 An old injury that starts hurting again.\u00a0 Joints that stiffen more quickly, and loosen more slowly.\u00a0\u00a0 A little tremor…a little weakness…and always lurking in the shadows, the big ones: cancer, heart, stroke, dementia.\u00a0\u00a0 We could of course be killed any time–today, the next hour–by the unexpected betrayal of some body part or the intentional or accidental acts of others, but the unexpected becomes more expected the longer we live<\/p>\n
Dragging this gently toward the other main topic of this blog, writing, the reality of death is why writers, including Jones, include death in stories.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Writers know they will die, just like everyone else.\u00a0\u00a0 Writers’ parents die.\u00a0 Writers’ siblings die.\u00a0 Writers’ spouses die.\u00a0 Writers’ friends (and enemies) die.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Reminders of mortality are all around us, all the time.<\/p>\n
Jones knew that, in her own body as well as in what she had lost of people she loved (and probably, if she hated anyone, people she hated.)\u00a0\u00a0 According to one report I read this morning, she chose to discontinue chemo to live her last almost-year without the anguish chemo causes…she wasn’t going to get a cure, so the cost\/benefit ratio, as the medical economists put it, wasn’t on her side for more chemo.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The friend I held in my arms for some of her last hours chose to continue treatment up to the last week or so, hoping for another remission.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Some people argue for the virtues of one choice over the other.\u00a0\u00a0 I argue for the freedom to choose, and to have a dying person’s choice respected, to not have someone gnawing on their decision to shape it to the gnawer’s ends.<\/p>\n
I had picked up Michael Dirda’s Book by Book: Notes on Reading and Life<\/em> the other day,\u00a0 and Diana Wynne Jones is one of the writers he references, describing her in the “Who’s Who” section in the back as “…major English writer of fantasy for children.”\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 The section of this book on “Last Things”\u00a0 continues one of the themes of Dirda’s books, on reading and “making a life” (in the old terminology.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 We are reminded, he says,\u00a0 by both the outward “real” life and by books that all we have to work with is the space between birth and death…but he also argues that doing things\u00a0 that contribute to civilization (among them writing a book of worth)\u00a0 “are the\u00a0 sorts of triumphs available to any of us. ”<\/p>\n Jones wrote books.\u00a0\u00a0 Many books.\u00a0\u00a0 Many good<\/em> books.\u00a0 As I was not privileged to know her I do not know what, besides books and a capacity for friendship she contributed.\u00a0 I do know that her books affected me, the middle-aged reader, and my husband (ditto) and we recommended them to others.\u00a0\u00a0 I had not discovered her work when I wrote the first Paks books…but they had become part of my reading background when I started this new group.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Did her work make a difference in mine?\u00a0 Almost certainly–everything I’ve read, like it or not, is “an influence”\u00a0 for or against something.\u00a0\u00a0 She is one writer whose influence–if it’s at all visible (among so many other writers I’ve read, it may or may not be obvious) I welcome.<\/p>\n Today is today and you who read this are alive, as am I writing it.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 So today, and especially if you’re a Diana Wynne Jones fan, go do something.\u00a0 Plant a garden or a single pot; cook a tasty meal for yourself and maybe a friend or your family;\u00a0 hold someone’s hand who’s grieving with the troubles of life or death;\u00a0 paint a dingy room;\u00a0 photograph a flower or an icicle…do something…maybe something you’ve delayed doing…maybe something you’d do anyway…because today is the day you’ve got, and this is the day I’ve got, and she didn’t waste her days.\u00a0 Nor should we.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Diana Wynne Jones died (of lung cancer, the stories say.)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 For reasons that aren’t really that important, she’s another YA author whose work I first ran into as an over-40s adult, and immediately fell for, and sought after, and read and re-read.\u00a0\u00a0 Her books made me laugh, scowl, worry…I don’t remember if I ever actually […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[53],"tags":[112],"class_list":["post-1145","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-beyond-writing","tag-life-beyond-writing"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1145"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1146,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1145\/revisions\/1146"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1145"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1145"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.paksworld.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1145"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}