“If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?”
That challenge from Stephen Levine, author of such books as “Who Dies?” and “One Year to Live,” brings many readers to a dead stop (pun intended). A few might crack a joke—“I would call a priest”—as people often use humor to deflect their fear of death.
Others might find Levine’s inquiry irritating. They avoid thoughts of death, especially their own. Like Scarlett O’Hara, they tell themselves, “I’ll think about that tomorrow. Tomorrow is another day.” The trouble is that, eventually, we run out of tomorrows. “Soon one mornin’,” the old song goes, “death come creepin’ in the room,” and all the padlocks in the world won’t prevent that thief’s entrance….