Life and a Dead Sea Lion

Along the shores of the Pacific today, as I took my morning walk, I came across a dead sea lion.

This was an unusual occurrence. I’d noticed them coming up onto the beach the past couple of weeks. While they are often seen in the ocean and in the harbor, it is rare for them to be on this beach. Farther south and farther north, it is common for them to send themselves ashore, but not here.

Last week I saw one that seemed to be having trouble with its eyes. I approached cautiously, and the creature would a noise and turn like he couldn’t see me, only hear me.

Others I had spotted were standing in the surf, and a couple were farther ashore, just laying quietly, moving occasionally.

I’m uncertain if the deceased creature, half buried in the sand, was one of those from last week.

Someone had placed sticks all around the body, like a police chalk outline, and constructed a small cross out of washed up sticks.

California sea lions are beautiful creatures. They can get massive (800+ pounds). Despite the danger they pose if you get too close, they are playful. They are like the Labrador Retrievers of the ocean. Curious, smart, and funny, with black, brown, or yellow coloring. I’ve had them swim alongside my kayak in the harbor, moving closer and then farther, as if they were trying to race me. Occasionally, they would dive and then appear right in front of me, or close to either side, as if trying to startle me, throwing a head back as if laughing with joy.

The dead creature before me led me to ponder how we think about death. We treat it as something unusual and tragic. As if it’s not part of every human experience—the death of others, and our own death. Every creature on the planet experiences it. It is the inevitable counterpart to being born. You cannot die without being born, and you cannot be born without dying.

Despite its inevitability (like taxes), maybe it feels so foreign because it is so painful when someone close to us passes away. Perhaps it is the finality of death that is so difficult. We will never see that person again— never laugh, never joke, never share, never love. At least not in this life.

If we are very close to this person, it can upend our life for quite some time. And if it is a beloved parent, spouse, child, and especially close friend, we never fully recover.

Like losing a leg, or an arm, or our eyesight, we must figure out how to go through life while being less than whole. We learn to adjust, yes, but we are not only scarred, we are forever wounded.

I recently lost a good friend to cancer. She was young: 47 years old. Beautiful, vibrant, funny, creative, and playful. Near the end of her life (I suspect she knew it was close), she asked me if I would be willing to take her to a newly opened fancy movie theater in Los Angeles. It was supposed to be quite an experience. She said, “You’d have to push me around in a wheelchair. Would you be OK with that?” I responded that it was a silly question. Of course, I would be glad to do it! She gave a little cry of joy and said, “I will begin planning it!” Two weeks later, she was gone. And there is a hole in my life.

Around the same time, one of my best friends from college lost his beloved wife of 35 years to a blood disease. She’d had it for a long time, and they knew that an early demise was almost certain. He was still shellshocked, of course. I vowed to contact him every day for 90 days to check in, and told him he did not have to respond if he didn’t feel like it. I just wanted him to know someone was thinking about him.

I wondered if I also wasn’t doing it for myself. Permanent loss is difficult to conceive of, and perhaps I wanted to find someway to stave off the pain, for him and me, as fruitless as it may be.

In the modern west, we ignore death as much as possible. We downplay its seriousness with phrases like, “you’re killing me!” In response to a joke or a constant irritation. When we’ve had it with something, we say, “kill me now.” Funerals and wakes are becoming less common. We burn the bodies and go out to dinner with our families and friends. Or we place them in commercial cemeteries, out of the way, where we don’t have to be reminded of the ugliness of death.

I wonder if ancient people didn’t have a healthier way. They were surrounded by death far more than us. Despite what we might think based on instantaneous news, the world is far safer today than it used to be (in most areas). Ancient people buried their dead in churchyards, in crypts inside the church under the floors Ian’s in the walls. When the entire community came together to worship, they were reminded of those who had gone on before them.

I think that this served to remind them that we are all here for a short time. A reminder that we should ensure that every moment is the best it can be. Enjoy every day, don’t sweat the small stuff, endure the suffering, don’t judge too harshly—because all of it passes away. The good and the bad, the joyful and the tragic. At the end of your life, where do you wish your focus had lain: the negative and bad, or the positive and good?

Of course, I’m not saying anything that millions haven’t said before. But we need to be reminded of what we already know, or pass our wisdom down to those who don’t know it yet.

Whoever placed those sticks around the sea lion mourned the beautiful creature. I stood silently and thanked God that he had created such a fascinating animal.

Perhaps death should be a time of celebration of the life that was and the joy that was experienced, and less about the loss. Because death is common to all of us.

Birth and death are merely bookends of a corporal existence. Some endings are sooner than we believe they should be. That does not make them any less worthy or valuable.

In this life, that is all we have: the years between entering and leaving this world. It is not birth and death that matter so much, it is everything in between. And we should find a way to celebrate that every day.