death – OLIVIA COLLETTE

Because many of you who read this are my friends, I assume (perhaps presumptuously) that you already know enough about me to understand the background in what I write about here. And I had a post all ready for you, talking about my recent travels, my travels to come, and the project I’ll be a part of in the next year. I had a lot to tell you.

All that was usurped by my father’s announcement, which wasn’t altogether unexpected: my 90-something-year-old grandmother has passed away. And I want to be fair, here, she was in her 90s. She’s had a long life, full of love and that unique stubborn spirit that seems inherent to Italians. Up to now, she was in control: there was no way she was ending up in a nursing home! And then her body started deciding for her. And then the x-rays came, with lumps and abnormalities and more bad news. And then the only thing doctors could do to provide a peaceful passing was to keep feeding her morphine.

Well, there it is. The circle of life.

Meanwhile, I’m in England feeling a little helpless. There isn’t much that can be done about it. I’m here and I can’t be over there. Then again, I’ve never needed ceremony to go through the rite. In this case, I can grieve without a funeral (at least, that’s what I’m telling myself). Besides, there’s a tiny bit of comfort in knowing that my current travels are fulfilling Nonna’s dreams in their own way.

A bit of history…In the very few trips I made to Sault Saint Marie to visit her, it wasn’t unusual for me to inundate Nonna with questions about my heritage (which was something of a mystery to me until I was 16 years old). Inevitably, I’d learn a lot about her life. She once showed me the oldest photo album she owned, with some pictures dating back to before she was born. Among the pictures of herself and her panoply of sisters was one photo of a young Nonna with her little arms wrapped around a tall, fair-skinned man who wasn’t my grandfather…or Italian!

She told me his name was Donald. He was Irish. He had been her beau before she ever met my grandfather. Donald had promised to marry her. I dare say she looked happier in this photo with Donald than in any of the pictures of her with my grandfather. Maybe it’s because she was. Donald had a job opportunity in Toronto, so he went to see what it was all about. He was supposed to come back, collect Nonna, and start a new life with her in Toronto. But he never returned.

That was Nonna’s short version of the story. I’m sure there was correspondence, an explanation, tears and so forth. I’m sure she and Donald had a rich story as a couple, with nights at the movies, breakfast at Muio’s and inside jokes. But 70 years after the fact, it’s down to a paragraph.

Like many women in their late teens or early 20s at the time, she didn’t want to risk waiting too long to get married. On top of being the norm, it had its economic advantages and it also got you out of your parents’ house. Which isn’t to say Nonna didn’t love my grandfather. There just wasn’t anything silly or youthful about their relationship.

Soon after, when she had children, they became her priority, as it goes for many women. She had hoped, at some point, to leave Sault Saint Marie and expand her world, but with a family to raise, and my grandfather having stakes in the local family business, she would remain in the Sault until she didn’t feel much like travelling anymore. I know she visited Toronto at some point in her life, and maybe more than once. I know she’d been to the United States, since Michigan was a short ride away. I’m just not sure how far she got, or how often.

Just the same, when my then-20-something father announced his plans to tour Europe on a motorcycle some time in the 1970s, she admired him for having the nerve to do it. She didn’t send him off without making her worries good and known, but she understood this was something he needed to do, and something she wished she had done sooner in her life. Maybe not on a motorcycle, but the itinerary was pretty much the same.

Later, when I told her I would be moving to Montreal from New Brunswick, she was excited that I was going to experience living in a big city. I tried to convince her to visit me, but she felt she was too old for such a long trip. In the 12 years I spent in Montreal, she encouraged all my whims. And to the idea of me not getting married at a young age, she would say, “It’s different for you kids now. You can date more. You can wait. I think that’s smart!”

By the time I had to make the decision to leave Montreal, albeit temporarily, to go to Europe for approximately a year, I could only tell Nonna in a letter. She could barely hear me on the phone anymore, so it was the best way to give her the news. Before she could write back, she was hospitalized, and the rest is covered at the beginning of this post. But when I spoke to my father a couple of nights ago, he assured me that she was ecstatic about where my journey had taken me.

I don’t want any of this to come across as me saying that my grandmother didn’t live fully. Many people don’t get to experience every little thing they desire in life. In fact, most people don’t. Travelling was one of those things for Nonna, but it doesn’t mean she wasn’t fulfilled in every other way.

I know this because she so generously shared the details of the missing half of my life. She told me everything, even if it wasn’t always rose-coloured and lovely, because she was at peace with the truth and wanted me to learn it from that place. She understood her children and grandchildren intimately, even if she was often quiet about it. And I know she was a happy woman because she was so easy to please. Indulging her in a simple game of cards was all it took to make her night (“there are no friends in cards,” she once warned me before a game; and she meant it).

I’m sad she’s gone and I regret not being able to say goodbye in a more ideal way. But I’m also relieved she never made it to that nursing home. The only home she ever wanted to be in was her own. I’m glad her life worked out that way.

A couple of days ago, the boyfriend unit sent me this bit of news, and if it’s actually possible, it could change everything.

Okay, don’t click the link. Here’s the skinny: scientists have found a way to slow the process of aging in fruit flies. They plan to move to bigger and better test subjects. If all works out well–for the scientists–experts say it’s possible that humans could well live to be 1,000 years old.

Says Robert Freitas at the Institute for Molecular Manufacturing, a non-profit, nanotech group in Palo Alto, California, “There are many, many different components of ageing and we are chipping away at all of the . It will take time and, if you put it in terms of the big developments of modern technology, say the telephone, we are still about 10 years off from Alexander Graham Bell shouting to his assistant through that first device. Still, in the near future, say the next two to four decades, the disease of aging will be cured.”

Naturally, both religious and scientific communities are in an uproar over this research. Not everyone thinks aging needs to be cured, while others argue that death is a saving grace for an already over-populated planet. And that doesn’t even begin to touch upon the psychological repurcussions of immortality.

Personally, I think we’re not designed for that kind of longevity, and faking it could have enormous consequences. Still, when the boyfriend unit brought it up over drinks, it made for some interesting speculations. What if we were able to live to be 1,000 years old? Here are a few things that came up.

No more marriage

Seriously, what’s the point? We’d outgrow the partnership by the end of a century, if not sooner. We might as well get used to the fact that we’d probably be able to tolerate several different partners, but definitely not just the one. Can you imagine spending 900 years with the same person? Yeah, neither can I. Marriage works on the premise that the time we spend on this planet, and with our partner, is limited. It’s kind of a bonus. Like, wouldn’t it be nice to spend the rest of the time I have here with you? If that time becomes quasi-limitless, it seems we’d have to come to terms with the temporary nature of our romantic attention span.

How long would I be 25?

I don’t care if it’s shallow, I want to know the real-time equivalent of a century. I mean, if I spend 900 years looking and feeling 100, I don’t want any part of it. And that’s the real question, isn’t it? If we slow the process of aging, and each century equals, say, a decade, does that mean it’ll take over 200 years for me to get my shit together? Does that mean I’ll spend 100 years being a child? And how am I developing psychologically? If emotional and neurological development are tied to one’s physiology, does that mean I’d spend 50 years as an overreactive teenager? If so, forget it! Adolescence is something I don’t wish to stretch out (or relive). Ever.

More time for stuff

One thing’s for sure, you can fathom checking off most items from that “things to do before I die” list. Even if we’re slowing down the process of aging, that doesn’t change the measure of time. A day still last 24 hours, and with more of these units in our lives, why not backpack through Europe, audition for a Hollywood movie (even though you can’t act), and learn the banjo! Though I’m against the idea, the prospect of living (almost) forever invites the fancy of doing a bunch of things I keep thinking I don’t have the time to do. For my part, I’d get a bunch of university degrees, just for the frak of it. I’d finish my music degree, I’d get a Master’s in English, and I’d also take architecture or urban planning (or both). I’d devote more time to filmmaking and art, since I wouldn’t be too worried about paying off my student loan. After all, I do have 700 years to get out of debt.

Homicidal territoriality

On the flip side, even if our bodies and minds are aging at a slower rate, I wonder how we’d tolerate living in such a chaotic and unjust society for that long. Isn’t that a recipe for utter madness? If I’m against the idea of living to be 1,000, it’s mostly because there are many things about this life that I can’t stand, and I’m not sure they’d be erased with agelessness. I hate how humans can be so inexplicably xenophobic and selfish. With more years to work on a plan, couldn’t one society ostensibly exact the genocide of another? Would immortality make us more peaceful or war-mongering? I can’t help but think that with more of us inhabiting the planet as a result of agelessness, we’d start to feel crowded and ultimately get grouchy, claustrophobic and territorial. I’m not saying this because I’m cynical. Science and anthropology combined make a case for this. While we can’t explain why we behave that way, we undeniably do. And human nature–if such a thing exists and if this is how it is manifest–is not a disease that can be cured. I want to believe that we learn that behaviour, but when something is this consistent, we usually classify it as observable phenomena. And that’s nature.

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And what about you? What do you think of agelessness? Is it a catastrophic notion or something that would solve most of your problems?

Tag: death

Ciao, Nonna

Oh, the carnage