A.M. "Mac Secrest, 1923-2010, A Life Well Lived

Mac Secrest's Self-written Obituary

Excerpts from Mac's email to Lucia Holliday Buie on March 14, 2010, approximately one month before he died. As he anticipated surgery to remove a cancerous tumor on his throat, he mocked his worrywart nature:

I have had a good time writing parodies of obits, most of which start, "So and so dies this week after a long, courageous fight with cancer." So I wrote one that read: 

"A. M Secrest, nearing 87, died this week after a long, cowardly, complaining battle with cancer. Secrest, from the moment he got the diagnosis, whined, complained, bitched and made life as miserable as possible for everyone. Never known as one who tried to make the best of a bad situation, but who loved to make the worst out of good ones, was so self-absorbed and obessive in his talk about his hard luck that people began to walk in the opposite direction as soon as they saw him come their way.

"Although his relatives might deny it, they too will be delighted when he has kicked the bucket, praying only that he has left some loot for them. 

"As my father used to say when he had indigestion and found relief in resounding farts, no matter when or where he was or who heard it, always shouted out, "Thank the Lord for that," so I imagine my famiy and friends when they finally get the "good news," will echo that exact expression."

Related:

• Anticipating Life-Threatening Surgery, He Went on a Shopping Spree for Unhealthy Foods
• In Selma, Alabama, 1965, Mac Secrest Helped Reduce Civil Rights Conflict...Often With Humor

Anticipating Life-threatening Surgery, He Went On a Shopping Spree for Unhealthy Foods

Mac Secrest at 86 wrote an email to his niece Lucia Holliday Buie as he anticipated surgery to remove a cancerous tumor:

My spirits are fine. I have lived on borrowed time for about 8 years. The present life expectancy for a male Caucasion born in 1923 is 78. But once one gets beyond certain dangers between 1923 and now, the life expectancy goes up and I think mine is between four and five years now, to about 90. But everyone agrees with me that now the quality of my life is more important than the quantity.

I like the young (well , everyone looks young to me these days) oncologist surgeon named Dr. Hackman who will do the surgery if that is the option I stick with. After I heard what seven weeks of radiation , five days a week, could do to you, I wonder why anyone would elect that option. It is quite likely that the radiation would rob one of sense of smell and taste and very likely could also make one lose the ability to swallow permanently. I don't envision spending the rest of my life with a tube up my nose and/or in my stomach through which i could be fed and kept alive.

The surgeon did say the surgery itself could do that, but if so, it's a very small chance and probably would not last longer than a couple of weeks. He has a nice sense of humor, for when I told him that if i were a surgeon I think I'd change my name from Hackman to Softman, or somethng that would not suggest I'd be hacked to death on the operating table. He said, well i might hack you up, you have to take me on faith if you chose the surgical option, which I think is the far better choice.

I replied that I would choose that option if he would guarantee that the operation would be unsuccessful and that i did indeed die on the operating table....

The surgery is set for March 30, which is the start of Passover, but as I told Molly, I had no intention of passing over to anywhere, not now anyhow, and passover to what? If I do, I'd better get religion in a hurry, just in case....I'm glad they did not set anything for March 15, for at least i do not have to Beware the Ides of March.

When I heard the March 30 date, I thought, good, that will give me a good chance to eat sensibly and get my clolesterol down and low sodium intake, etc. But had a sudden mood swing and went to H/T supermarket and trolled down one aisle and up another and spent $120.00 all on junk good: esp. dark chocolate candy bars, salty potato chips, Texas and Ciabatta bread with lot of cheese on top and a lot of different kinds of cheese to enjoy during happy hoour. Since wine burns my throat now, i have taken to drinking a lot of green tea, in either Scrapple or Lipton bottles, and i love the taste and its thin , stained body. It has lots of antioxidents in it so should be good for me and it sure does help get the bigger pills down easily.

Maybe, Mac, You Will Be Surprised

Jim Buie wrote Mac Secrest: "I think/hope you are going to be surprised not only by the number of people whose lives you have touched, and continue to touch, but also by the significance of your life. Do you know the poem by William Wordsworth, "Surprised by Joy -- Impatient as the Wind"? I'm sure you do.

Surprised by joy — Impatient as the Wind

I turned to share the transport--Oh! with whom

But Thee, deep buried in the silent tomb,

That spot which no vicissitude can find?

Love, faithful love, recalled thee to my mind--

But how could I forget thee? Through what power,

Even for the least division of an hour,

Have I been so beguiled as to be blind

To my most grievous loss?--That thought's return

Was the worst pang that sorrow ever bore, 

Save one, one only, when I stood forlorn,

Knowing my heart's best treasure was no more;

That neither present time, nor years unborn

Could to my sight that heavenly face restore. 

Mac replied: "That is a lovely poem by Wordsworth.  We visited his home and burial site in the lake country of northern england in 1983.  It would be very good of you to read it at a service, if there is one. As I said earlier, services really are for the living and it is for them to decide...

Related:

• Reflections on God and the Afterlife Upon My Approaching Demise, by Mac Secrest

Ominous and Significant Weight Loss, Existential Angst. Thoughts of Visiting Dr. Kevorkian

When Mac's nephew Jim Buie left the U.S. in September, 2009 for a year in Turkey, Mac's last words to him were, "See you in the next life," and he told Jim's wife Lucia, "I'm proud to have known you."

In emails a few weeks later, Mac wrote: "I lose a pound a day despite force feeding myself. Down to 150 now, just a month after leaving the hospital for hernia repair at 164. I have serious doubts as to whether I'll last even as long as Ann's 90th birthday celebration Oct. 24, 2009, so the instruction is to have it regardless, and no services of any kind for me.  Just a birth and death date and name on (son) Phil's tombstone in Monroe and ashes scattered around. No pay for anything."

This was followed by emails blustering about visiting Dr. Kevorkian or a clinic in Oregon, or Switzerland, where physician-assisted suicide is legal. "I do think it is best for people when the time comes to go quickly, but we cannot control that.  At some point, when there is no longer even human dignity, just a breathing body still hanging on, it is best to have euthanesia. We are far kinder in that regard to our animals than we are to ourselves," Mac wrote.

This morose talk upset Jim and Lucia. She wrote Mac: "Oh, alright, go on if you have to and take you light with you. I can never believe the freedom with which you say anything that has roiled the gray cells under that bald pate of yours. How were you born with such a sense of liberty? I do love you, miss and will miss your refusal to ignore any take on any subject. I hope that when I am your age, I will be as alive and ageless as you have been. How lucky I have been to know you."

Jim replied to Mac: "I think you are clinically depressed, or experiencing existential angst, or at the very least a denial of the significance of your demise to those who have known you...Your instructions are to just put your name on a stone shared by your son Phil, forget about your death, and get on with life?Yeah, right. You are going to impose on your loved ones the idea that your life is not worth celebrating, that there is emphatically no spirit that survives death, and that your passing should be marked only by the shrug of a shoulder and an "oh well, he was old...what's for dinner?" 

"I suspect if you were motivated, or if your doctors were clueful, there would be medications you could take to stimulate appetite, and that, in turn, would improve your emotional state."

Mac, in response, acknowledged that he was "a little depressed," though not clinically, mostly "discouraged and a little anxious." He was thinking realistically about the future, he said. "People do get older and become more feeble and can't do what they once could, or even want to, but that is inevitable. I can see changes, distraction, forgetfulness, and poor driving in myself.  But I try to find compensations for it."

60th Wedding Anniversary Video

At Nearly 85, I'm NOT Mellowing With Age. But Life Is Basically Good

Bob Seymour, Minister Emeritus of Binkley Memorial Baptist Church in Chapel Hill, had a great column, as usual, in the Chapel Hill Herald, on "growing old." His column scooped a University of Chicago study that found, according to the Associated Press, "oldest Americans are also the happiest."

I don't know of any two people more entitled to speak to the subject of aging that Bob and Pearl as they have certainly put their heart, minds and energy to improving the lives of the elderly in the Chapel Hill  area, as proven by the success of the Pearl and Bob Seymour Senior Center, so appropriately named after its founders. I am also aware of Bob's intiatives in the Interfaith Council and concern with the homeless, some of whom are themselves growing older. 

His article reminded me of a poem I always liked by Robert Browning who wrote to Elizabeth Barrett, "Come grow along with me; the best is yet to be, the last of life, for which the first was made," or words to that effect. 

I also remember Shakespeare's lament to old age, a less optimistic view, that speaks of the seven stages of a man, from "muling and puking in his nurse's arms to his second childishness and mere oblivion,Sans teeth, sans eyes, sans taste, sans everything." 

But Browning was only in his 40's when he rescued Elizabeth from a tyranical father, and died in his 50's, so what did he know about the last of life?

And Shakespeare's observation seems odd, because so few people lived that long in his era to become so plagued by really old age. 

I see evidence out here at Carolina Meadows every day of love, courage, peace of mind (that passeth my understanding) and a willingness, even eagerness, to participate, learn, and attend lectures, musical recitals, dining room festivities, volunteering for many things, etc. Even those with really severe disabilities seem happy, content, and keep on plugging along.

Someone once observed that youth is such a wonderful time of life, what a pity it has to be wasted on the young. But I remember what it was like to be young, and so egocentric and self-absorbed, insecure and uncertain about my future. I was always borrowing trouble (as well as having plenty thrust upon me at early ages, periodically), so I empathize with them too.

I have been lucky so far. Despite a bout with cancer in my mid 50's and a problem with heart in late 70's, I've been physically healthy. Unlike Shakespeare's old man, I have my own eyes, teeth, ears, etc., everything but hair!

In fact, I'd say at age nearer 85 than 84, I can and hear about as well as I did when I was 20. And both my short term and long term memory are as good. In fact, I seem to remember better than a lot of people half my age. 

This past week, for example, I caught Ann's doctor writing the wrong prescriptions and the pharmacist filling the wrong prescriptions, and my accountant making many mistakes in federal and state income tax returns. I had to refigure that complicated 1040 and return to her.

So all that made me feel pretty good, if irritated, and I admit to growing impatient as I get older, as well as a tendency to scapegoat others, when I may well be the one at fault. 

But I cannot say the same thing about my energy level or walking (peripheral neuropathy affecting me progressively).

I strive to be a good citizen and active in the local community, getting up and going when I'd prefer to stay home and maybe in bed, taking my turn in preparing programs, doing more and more caregiving at home as Ann feels less able to do as much as she once did, and she still does MIGHTY WELL, all things considered.

I visit acquaintances now living either in assisted living, a nursing home or the Green Room for the more seriously cognitively impaired. And I do try to keep in close contact with family, nuclear and extended.

So yeah, the elderly are doing O.K., though how well depends on health, rate of aging, and temperament, I suppose. And we do have the advantage of advances in health care over the past quarter century, and the economic and medical security that progressive legislation has provided, such as social security and  Medicare.

In conclusion, I don't think I am improving with age. Unlike old wine, I am not getting more mellow. I try but my reach does indeed exceed my grasp. (another Browning quote).