Coping With Death
What is it Like to Watch Someone Die?
Learning to cope with death — and everything after
The little Greek diner was packed that Saturday morning. We’d slept late, and had to wait for one of the cracked-vinyl booths. The place echoed in cacophony: clattering silverware, clinking dishes, wait staff and cooks shouting orders through the window above the till. Having lost the coin toss this time, I faced the noisy dining room instead of the window. A man sat alone, just across the way. I hadn’t paid him much attention, not then. Not until he began to choke.
He gripped his throat and half stood, jostling the table. Then he fell sideways and slid to the floor. I don’t remember leaving my seat. I don’t remember getting across to where he lay, but I was kneeling next to him. Someone hovered at my ear — does he need the Heimlich? “He isn’t choking,” I said. “He’s having a heart attack.”
I was just twelve when I witnessed by first cardio-infarction. My father collapsed while chopping wood and was rushed via helicopter to the city hospital. They saved him in time, but there would be more heart attacks over the years, and I learned the signs. It can feel like choking, the pressure of the heart struggling against a blockage radiating to throat and jaw. Those early episodes gave me a sort of…
