Momma and the Meaning of Life: Tales of Psycho-therapy

by Irvin D. Yalom

“We humans go through life in stages. As very young children, we think about death a great deal; some of us even obsess about it. It’s not hard to discover death. We simply look around and see dead things: leaves and lilies and flies and beetles. Pets die. We eat dead animals. Sometimes we’re privy to the death of a person. And before long we realize that death will come to everyone—to our grandma, to our mother and father, even to ourselves. We brood about this in private. Our parents and teachers, thinking it’s bad for children to think about death, keep silent about it or give us fairy tales about a heaven and angels, eternal reunion, immortal souls.” Ernest stopped, hoping Merges was following his words. “And then?” Merges was following all right. “We comply. We push it out of our minds, or we openly defy death with great feats of daredevilry. And then, just before we become adults, we brood a great deal about it again. Although some cannot bear it and refuse to go on living, most of us blot out our awareness of death by immersing ourselves in the tasks of adulthood—building a career and family, personal growth, acquiring possessions, exercising power, winning the race. That’s where I am now in life. After that stage, we enter the later era of life, where awareness of death emerges again, and now death is distinctly menacing—in fact, imminent. At that point, we have the choice of thinking about it a great deal and making the most of the life we still have or pretending...