1 Death and the Lighthouses (1 January 2001)

In the police report of Luke’s accident, his death was described as
“horrible”. But isn’t death, by definition, always horrible Whether our
bodies are eaten by disease, or sliced a little at a time by a psychopathic
killer, or if they simply decay with age, isn’t it always horrific It should be
clear that what has just been described is not death, but the process of
dying, and it is this which is horrific. Although Luke did not understand or
condone suicide, he did respect the right a suicidal person feels he or she
has to choose when to die. For Luke the most unacceptable thing is when
one human being or organisation assumes the right to take another’s life, or
conversely, the right to forbid people from deciding their own destiny. Jack
Kervorkian, the American “Doctor Death”, understands this, although the
morality of the methods he employs to assist in the voluntary euthanasia of
his pain-stricken clients is questionable. But Luke was fond of the guy.
*
Matthew and Mark both accepted that Luke was dead: they saw the men
in white, wrapping his body in a zip-bag. But death is not non-existence.
For Matthew, Luke’s soul is in limbo, and at the judgment will continue to
exist in paradise. We should not criticise Matthew’s assumption that Luke
will be one of the fortunate souls. He knew him only as a decent, kind,
amusing young man. All of us spend most of our lives judging those we meet
solely from appearances, projecting our own personalities onto theirs. Mark,
his brother’s junior by six years, believed something quite different. But the
elder could never have guessed the full extent of the differences which
existed between them. Mark was tormented not by the fact that he was
haunted by the ghost of Luke, but because he wanted to slice through the
heart of the ghost. The ghost was not his lost friend, nor his love for him; the
ghost was his own fear of Luke. How is it possible to be terrified by the
memories of those we have loved Mark sought explanations. Along the way,
he heard a story about a man who was haunted by the ghost of his wife. The
man saw a therapist, who was sympathetic to his client’s position. The ghost
was so real, she conversed with the man for long periods, seemed to know
his inner thoughts. This is what the doctor advised: The next time you see
the ghost of your wife, he said, go to the pantry and take a handful of beans
from a jar. Ask your wife how many beans you are holding in your closed
palm. The man followed the instructions, and when he asked the question
his wife’s ghost disappeared. A simple but effective cure for a dysfunctional
imagination.
*
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