Kimo's Exam Essay

Kimo Gray
6.5.09
English 9
Mr. Hamilton Salsich

I Can Die Today
And Essay on Death, Life, Peace, and Mortality


At fifteen years old, not much is complicated. All our necessities are provided to us by our parents, the wonders of technology are not far from our comprehension, and philosophy is put away for “the old years.” Life is about fun, about learning both educationally and spiritually, and our most difficult toils are exams. But mighty as we may be, we are not immortal. The American poet William Ross Wallace once wrote, “Everyone dies. Not every man really lives.” Carefree as our lives may be, mortality is an issue everyone faces in their lifetime, be them an innocent young girl, or a bitter old man. Life may not be complicated now, but as the poet William Stratford’s poem, “Yes,” tells us, “It can happen at any time.”

Laura Sheridan, from Katherine Mansfield’s short story, “The Garden Party,” was just a young girl whose greatest concern in life was that the day’s garden party would go well. But when the death of a poor neighbor passes over the heads of her family, it affects her in a way she could hardly imagine, rocking her to the core. The day starts well enough, everything and everyone in their place in ceremonious preparation. Laura is in charge of everything; furniture is moved, her sister sings on with the piano, and then they learn that Mr. Scott, a lower-class neighbor, has died. Immediately hit with a feeling of irrational regret for holding a party on a day as dark as this, she talks with her brother, expressing she wants to cancel the party. In response, he comments on her marvelous hat. She talks with her mother, who merely pushes her away by revealing that it is she who has been influencing Laura’s decisions for the party. Hurt, she talks with her sister, Jose, who informs her that if she doesn’t leave things like these alone in her life, it will be a very strenuous one. Jose’s glare hardens, and she softly says, “You won’t bring a dead man back to life by being sentimental.” The garden party commences, though Laura doesn’t feel any of it, she is lost in this illusion of lilies, hats, garden parties that mean anything to Mr. Scott’s widow. After the party, she takes matters into her won hands, and walks down to Main Street to give the leftovers to Mrs. Scott. Wading through the crowd of lower-class observers, she goes up to the door. The widow’s sister greets her, and in a second she is gazing at the dead man, at the adamant behest of Mrs. Scott’s sister. She is overcome with emotion at the peaceful look at his face, and runs out of the house, runs through the mob, runs as far as she can until she is in the arms of her brother, Laurie. In a flood of tears she murmurs, “Isn’t life, isn’t life-” to which her brother knowingly replies, “Isn’t it?” Laura, a girl too young but not too proud to understand her life is worth the same as Mr. Scott’s, is a force of what the poet Strafford tries to tell us all, “It could happen at any time…no guarantees…[we have] right now.”

In a Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, an unpleasant miser by the name of Ebenezer Scrooge is a greedy old humbug whose greatest love in life is money. After he refuses his clerk’s request to spend Christmas with his family, slams the door on some carolers and refuses to give money to the needy, (but is all to happy to keep the prisons working) he goes home to sleep in his dark mansion and prepare for another cheap day. To the great surprise of Scrooge, his deceased business partner, Jacob Marley, visits him on the anniversary of his death, Christmas Eve, telling Scrooge of all the pain he must endure because of what he did in life. He offers Scrooge one chance at redemption, or else he will join Marley in Hell. He promises him three ghosts of Past, Present, and Future, will visit him and show him truly what he is. Marley leaves, and Scrooge, convinced Marley must have been some vision spawned from bad gravy, reluctantly goes to sleep. As Marley promised, Scrooge is visited all three times that night, and shown the cruelty of his life, and what his life will become. If he does not change his ways, he will have an untimely death, though not unearned. The next morning, Scrooge, now a changed man filled with all the wonders of life, jumps from his bead and belts to a boy down below to go buy him the biggest turkey in town, throwing him for more money then a customary tip. Gleeful he goes about his day giving money to the poor and celebrating life. For Christmas Eve, he surprises his clerk by presenting his large yet poor family with a huge sack of gifts and the grand turkey. Scrooge was a twisted man, one who turned away from life but needed the touch of death to bring him back. He understood that we are each only given one life to live, one life to love, for anyone can die, but it takes someone great to live down a reputation worth remembering after your time ends.

I could die today. I could choke on smarties, have my heart shutdown from an electrical computer malfunction. I could be hit by a car, my assumed ambulance could be hit by a bus, I could then be carried off by a pterodactyl. (Asyndeton) The imagination is limitless. The point is, I am not immortal, and though my mind knows it, my heart can’t accept it. “Tornado, Earthquake, Armageddon…” William Stafford shares my morbid imaginations. But as he also says, “[There’re] no guarantees in this life.” Sometimes I don’t feel like most fifteen year old. I worry about the future, about my move later this month, about being remembered after my death, about passing this exam, about finding and fulfilling my purpose for this world, about staying patient with my little brother. I worry. But life goes on, until you die. I don’t know when that will be. I can die today. But I don’t regret anything; I’ve done everything I wanted to by my fifteen year checkpoint. “It can happen any time.” I could die today.(Repetition) The most any of us can do is find our peace, and hold on to it as long as you can until it all is built up in one expression of soul and entity, and then.