When we are young, we barely think about death or dying. It simply isn’t on our radar. Our attention is consumed with more concrete concerns like school, work, bills and romantic relationships, not necessarily in that order. But, as we age, thoughts of our mortality seep into our thoughts, dreams and plans with each tick of the clock. After all, no one gets out of here alive.
Death is to be Feared
From the release of David Bowie’s first single, Space Oddity, we are reminded that while Major Tom had the spotlight of success shining on him for a short while, he was doomed to die in outer space, alone. “Tell my wife I love her very much,” he says as his capsule is forever lost, a blinking light among millions of stars. In this sense, Bowie taught me that death is to be an unwelcome, lurking and ever-present force that no one will ultimately escape. It doesn’t matter who or what we are – rich, poor, famous or infamous – death is the great equalizer. Death is so large and we are so small.
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Death Brings Us Together
11 years later, Bowie released the masterful “Ashes to Ashes” on the Scary Monsters album. I recall listening to it with a friend the entire month it was released. We couldn’t get enough of Bowie’s pressured voice and the frantic guitar work of Robert Fripp. On “Ashes to Ashes,” Major Tom returns to Earth, but he has dramatically changed into someone or something else. He is now a junkie, “Strung out in Heaven’s high, hitting an all-time low”. While Major Tom seems mentally disturbed by whatever happened to him out there in space, his hope for survival and connectedness with “Ground Control” gave him strength to survive, no matter the cost to his physical or mental well-being. Death, then, connects us as humans. It brings us together in ways that many other events simply do not or cannot. Death is a source of social unity like none other.
Bowie provides the same theme in a song – “Five Years” from one of his most iconic albums – The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars. In the song, Ziggy realizes that the Earth will only exist for another five years and then it’s all over. The end is coming and humanity must do what it can with the time that left. Some people will live in fear, others will live their lives to the fullest. Celebrate, party, do what you want with the last five years you have. Here, Bowie taught me to move on, fear not, and live every day like it’s my last. He also stresses that we should all come together, for we share the same fate.
Death is Too Difficult to Define
In one of my favorite Bowie songs, “Heroes”, from the album Heroes, Bowie takes a turn on death as something that is too big and too complex to define, so it is ok to feel ambivalent about it, meaning it’s fine to feel torn about. We don’t have to take one side or another on death. As the world comes crashing down on two lovers by the Berlin Wall, Bowie sings “And the guns shot above our heads (over our heads) And we kissed, as though nothing could fall (nothing could fall)”, even though death may be present, we should never stop giving into our impulse to love.
On Bowie’s 2013 album, The Next Day, Bowie defies death in the title track “The Next Day” by singing the line “Here I am not quite dying”. In this regard, death is not to be feared but instead rebelled against. Again, death is too complicated to be put in a box.
Death is Inevitable and Accepted
The song “Thursday’s Child” from his album Hours provides the line “All of my life I’ve tried so hard, doing the best with what I had, nothing much happened all the time”. This lyric is filled with regret and disappointment that life has given. But the next run, “Only for you I don’t regret that I was Thursday’s child,” shows us what life is really about anyway. Love and our memories of love are what carries us to our final resting place. Life is finite. As we age and death becomes closer, we have the option of fearing it or using it to clarify what matters most. Live. Love. Accept death.
Bowie Dies Unafraid
On January 10, 2016 at 7:30am, I received a text from a dear friend who also loves Bowie as much as I do. He said “I hope the news from the AP is wrong”. It wasn’t. Bowie had passed from liver cancer without anyone, except his family and a couple close friends, knowing. He filmed two videos 48 hours before his death: “Blackstar” and “Lazarus”. In them, he gives us clues about his illness, impending death and his attitudes towards dying and death. He is unafraid. “This way or no way, you know I’ll be free, just like that blackbird, now ain’t that just like me, Oh I’ll be free, just like that blackbird, Oh I’ll be free, ain’t that just like me”. His death was like his life – living art, unafraid to be many things and nothing at the same time.
(NOTE: Interested in learning more about Hospice? Checkout my Hospice CEUs on CEU Academy and try a FREE CEU today!)