Death by Natural Causes

Joe Jones, who died of natural causes at 97 years of age was a pretty good Joe. He went to work every day, five days a week, day in and day out, collected his much deserved paycheck every other Friday and took it home to his wife. She cashed it and paid the bills and ran the household and made sure there was plenty of food in the refrigerator for her, Joe and the kids, and gave Joe a couple of bucks to spend at the bar drinking with the guys a few times a week. Other than the beer, he took good care of his health, ate right, exercised moderately and lived to a ripe old age. When he died no one had had much to say about it. A very few people said what a good man he was and what a great time he had riding the roller coaster with Jo’s kids and added he had never been in jail and never cheated on his wife. You might not be surprised that no one said to anyone, “Did you know that Joe died the today of natural causes?” “You’re kidding! Natural causes? Ain’t that something! I am going to watch the news tonight on TV. They surely will do a story on that!” “You bet they will. I’ll be watching for it too.” I don’t think so.

But what if he had been murdered? Would that have been featured on the six o’clock news. Most probably. Any murder is shocking enough to grab the attention of the viewers, and more viewers mean more people see more TV commercials which causes more sales for the advertisers who pay for advertising, which means more money for the TV station owners. And friends and family and strangers too will talk all the next day about the murder report they saw on TV. Death by natural causes somehow isn’t as striking.

Many people avoid high crime areas in order to decrease the possibility of getting murdered. And many people never fly in an airplane because they are terrified of dieing in a plane crash. A few people never drive a car because dieing in a car crash would be awful, they are sure. But no matter how you die it is clear you are just as dead. A person who is fearful of death who dies at home in bed of natural causes is often fearful for many days, maybe weeks or months, and even years, but still, he thinks it much preferable to the quick violent death.

Is a natural death really better? Personally, I have no preference, as I make no assumption about which would be the easiest, but a quick death from being murdered would be much more memorable to other people than a slow death at home in bed of natural causes. Family members would talk about it for generations. So, for now on I will live my life as if it doesn’t matter how I die, and if I am blessed by the gods of romance, I will die of a violent murder or stupendous car crash instead of quickly forgotten natural causes. In conclusion, my friend, I wish you a big funeral and lots of hoopla when you die, and I’ll watching for word of you in the local newspaper! I know it will give quite a boost to my conversational repertoire.