Jan Ogren

My father did not die of aspiration pneumonia. That’s what his death certificate states, but it’s not true. They wouldn’t allow me to write in the real reason. A death certificate requires a cause of death. A person isn’t permitted to just die. There must be something to blame, something that goes wrong as if death is a mistake. But death happens to everyone. My dad knew that. That’s why he planned his one-hundredth birthday as a memorial service for himself.

***

December third, 2018 was his one-hundredth birthday. What a celebration it was! A week full of festivities. Hiking a mile in the redwoods with his Swedish cousins. Going to San Francisco and picking up the children of life-long friends and then taking them around Golden Gate Park. A five-course French dinner for 21 people. And then on his actual birthday a celebration in the style of a Unitarian Universalist memorial service.

My dad stood behind the podium, in his pink dress shirt and bollo tie, at the beginning of his 100^th birthday celebration, looking out at the crowd of 130 people and said, “This is my memorial service, and I am here! Too often I’ve been at memorial services and the person being honored isn’t there. That doesn’t seem right. So I’m here for mine.” He smiled and looked around as people cheered him. He raised his arms high above his head, clasping his hands as though he’d just won a gold medal.

“Thank you for coming. To light the chalice for my service, I’m going to read a poem called ‘Choose Life.’ Three years ago my daughter told me she wanted to dedicate her next book to me, and what would I like? Right away I said I want a book of your poetry and photography. I got to pick out all my favorite poems and this one is the first poem from the book Celebrate Life.”

He read the poem, as I lit the chalice. Then my dad continued, “People ask me how did I do it? How is that I’m 100 years old and happy? Well, I’m going to tell you my five philosophies.” He reached up and tapped his forehead. “Think positively. Try something new. Look forward to growing older. Yes, I did say look forward to growing older! Work to build a better world for all. And exercise daily, or almost daily.” He added the last with a smile. Even though he did exercise every day, he didn’t want to discourage anyone if they didn’t do it daily.

The minister said it was the most joyful memorial service he’d ever performed. It was also the easiest because my dad wrote out the script for him; after all, he did like to be in control. The minister shared how my father was raised Swedish Methodist on a small farm in Minnesota. He left that faith when he went to the University of Minnesota. It was too confining for him, just like living on a farm was not the life he wanted. He was an explorer. He wanted to figure out life for himself, not be told what to believe or what to do every day.

When my dad discovered Unitarian Universalism he knew he’d found a spiritual home. Here was a religion that allowed him to be an atheist, and later an agnostic. He lived without a belief or a concept of what would happen after death and for him, it was the big unknown.

We showed pictures of him, we sang songs and people got up and talked about him, just like they’d do at a memorial service. Only he got to be there for all of it. At the end my dad came back up to do the closing words. “I started my service with the poem ‘Choose Life,’” he said. “Now I’m going to end with two poems about death. The first one is called. ‘I Plan to Die.’ I’ve always been annoyed when people say ‘if I die’ as though it’s an option. It’s not. Everyone will die. The second poem is called, ‘Pack Love’ about how all you need for your last journey is love.” He read the two poems and then everyone sang happy birthday to him. The pianist, who was a professional jazz musician, played a boogie-woogie improve on happy birthday and my dad and I danced on stage, as the audience sprang to their feet and cheered him.

***

Eighteen days after his birthday Dad decided to go on hospice. He didn’t want someone calling an ambulance and sending him to the hospital, as he got ready to die. There was an obstacle to his qualifying for hospice though, he had no terminal diagnosis. He was in good health. But since he was 100 years old the nurse said, “We’ll admit you, then reevaluate you in three months.”

After filling out all the paperwork he turned to me and asked, “Do we still have time to go to that Irish Christmas show tonight?”

“Sure Dad,” I said, “why not go out and celebrate going on hospice.” It was a good way to avoid thinking that he was planning to die.  The poem he read at his memorial, ‘I Plan to Die,’ begins: “I plan to die. Not next Thursday and not before the holidays.” And he did that. He lived through Christmas and New Year’s so that he wouldn’t leave us with his death over the holidays. The poem ends with the line: “All my life, I have planned, as my final act – to die.” And that’s what he did on January fifth, two weeks after entering hospice.

I wish I’d asked him more about how he knew he was going to die. Every time I tried, I got so choked up with tears it was hard to talk, and then we’d just look at each other and we knew. We knew the time was coming and he wanted to die naturally, in good health.

He didn’t die of any cause or reason. He died because he knew how to let go. He’d been practicing it for years. Letting go of friends, letting go of his much-beloved wife, letting go of being able to travel long distances, letting go of being able to cross-country ski and climb mountains.

People asked me if there would be a memorial service, but I said, “No, we had it, he planned it, and he was there.” We did have a brief service with the minister and forty people when we put his ashes in the memorial garden at the church. My mother died in 2013, just after their sixty-fourth anniversary. Her ashes were placed in the memorial garden and everytime I took my dad to church we paused at the garden. He would point to where her ashes were and say, “someday that’s where I’ll be, right next to her.” His final words, that the minister read were, “I enjoy life. Each step along the way has given me new experiences. I don’t look back at the past with regrets or nostalgia. Every year has been the best yet.”  

Published in California Writer’s Club Literary Review 2020 and Sunset Sunrise: A Collection of Endings and Beginnings 2020 Anthology