Christopher Hitchens died on 15 December 2011.
He died of cancer of the esophagus. He fought it as best as he could and the
struggle was unfortunately lost. He was only 62 when he died. I came to know
this man because I am a Christian. And as a Christian, the works of this man
cannot be ignored. Christopher was a diehard atheist. Unlike his brother (Peter
Hitchens), he lived as an atheist and subsequently died as one.
I am always intrigued by this man who wrote
with such effortless
notoriety that even his enemies, if they are honest
enough, would deeply respect. One may not agree with what he has to say, and oh what eloquence he had said it,
but Christopher is no different from any man I know who is trying his darnest
best to understand the world he lives in and the world beyond.
Sometimes, I am guilty of this self-indulgence
to feel that we are all victims of the daunting mystery that surrounds us. And
this mystery has two faces about her. One face toys with us, plodding
us to
defy it, challenging us to go against it. Then there is another face. It is the
face of love, joy and peace. It is a face of assurances and reassurances.
For people like Christopher, for reasons
beyond me, they often find themselves confronting the former “provocative” face of this mystery rather
than the latter. And because of that, they dig their heels even deeper into the
ground and refuse to budge. They will therefore do battle against this mystery
until they heave their last breath – as Christopher did.
Now, who is ultimately right and stands on
the
side of truth is not what I want to discuss here. I have my view and the
late Christopher had his. But when I read his book Mortality, I realized there is something about this man that I admired. He was one who faced death and life and the "in-betweens" with such all-embracing resolute that only a man
of faith can earnestly boast about.
For him, life is precious and death is ashes.
The end is the end. He doesn't fear death in the same way that a martyr doesn't
fear it. The only difference is that one sees death as the start of
eternal
life and the other sees it as the start of eternal oblivion. Both deal
with eternity on terms they are familiar with but offer a different definition
of what to expect (or not expect) after a life expires.
His wife, Carol Blue, recalls a time when
during their wedding anniversary, his two-year-old daughter saw a bumble bee
lying motionless on the ground. She then cried, "No, no, no! The bee stopped." And then, she made a command,
"Make it start." At this
time, his wife observed that
"Christopher
then lifted her into his lap and consoled and distracted her with a change of
subject and humor. Just as he would, with all his children, so many years
later, when he was ill."
I guess Christopher would rather deal with
life than death because the latter is the end of it all. This is the same man
who had led an active life, touring around the globe to write, debate, teach,
educate, enlighten and evangelize (anti-evangelize?). He would invite people
from all walks of life to gather for a meal in his house. During such time,
Christopher
would really shine like a supernova explosion.
This was how his wife puts it in the book.
"At home at one of the raucous,
joyous, impromptu eight-hour dinners we often found ourselves hosting, where
table was so crammed with ambassadors, hacks, political dissidents, college
students, and children that elbows were colliding and it was hard to find the
space to put down a glass of wine, my husband would rise to give a toast that
could go on for a stirring, spellbinding, hysterically funny twenty minutes of
poetry
and limerick reciting, a call to arms for a cause, and jokes. "How
good it is to be us," he would say in his perfect voice."
Indeed,
Christopher was an impossible act to follow. Even when he was told
that he had cancer and it had metastasized, Christopher still kept up the humor
and charm. During such time, his words were both ironic and witty. His
feelings poured out in his writings and at one time, he wrote, "In one way, I suppose, I have been "in
denial" for some time, knowingly burning the
candle at both ends and
finding that it often gives a lovely light. But for precisely that reason, I
can't see myself smiting my brow with shock or hear myself whining about how
it's all so unfair: I have been taunting the Reaper into taking a free scythe
in my direction and have now succumbed to something so predictable and banal
that it bores even me. Rage would be besides the point for the same reason.
Instead, I am badly oppressed by the gnawing sense of waste."
This gnawing sense of waste was most
viscerally felt during those dastardly blood extraction sessions. The agony of
going through it was unbearably painful. He wrote that "one had to stop pretending that the business
was effectively painless. No more the jaunty talk of "one little pinch".
It doesn't actually hurt that much to have a probing needle inserted for a
second time. No, what hurts is having it moved to and fro, in the hope that it
can properly penetrate the veins and release the needful fluid. And the
more
this is done, the more it hurts."
In one incident, he was advised to insert a
permanent blood catheter to dispense with the trouble of repeated temporary
insertion. Christopher was assured that it would be a swift procedure and it
would not take more than ten minutes. However, it stretched past two hours when
the nurses and technician tried their desperate best to get it right. The
prolonged drama of pain took twelve attempts to finish the job and any illusion
that even the seemingly swiftest procedure in this whole cancer
treatment could
be painless was readily dispelled from Christopher's mind after that.
In the book, he kept going back to that famous
phrase by Nietzsche (who borrowed it from Goethe), “That which doesn’t kill you will make you stronger.” This is the victory
chant for many trauma survivors. But to Christopher, he saw it in a less
optimistic light. He lamented that there is a danger that that which doesn’t
kill you may not just maim or disable you for life, but sinisterly contribute
to your death sooner or later.
Even for people who are healthy, this dark
side of the Nietzschean quote can somehow be intimately felt. Some mishaps in
life, when they happen and are irrevocable, act as a ticking mortal time bomb
that marks the beginning of a downward slide into an unbearable, interminable suffering
of the most unspeakable, undignified kind. So, in an ironically morbid way,
that which doesn’t kill you now often make you want to kill yourself later. I
guess this is why, when he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and going
blind, the highly learned Catholic theologian Hans Kung went public to endorse
mercy killing and rationalized it as follows, “I do
not wish to go on living as a shadow of myself…People have a right to die when
they see no more hope of being able to continue a humane life, however they
define that.”
Christopher recalled in the book the painful
experiences of the late Professor Sidney Hook, who was a formidable materialist
and pragmatist, and an unrelenting atheist. He too died from a serious illness.
But to him, the real torture was not the ultimate end but the road leading to
it. Professor Hook largely attributed his continued living as a cruel act to be
kept sentient just so as he could experience even more pain.
At one point in the treatment, the late
Professor recounted this grim reality. “I
lay at the point of death. A congestive heart failure was treated for
diagnostic purposes by an angiogram that triggered a stroke. Violent and
painful hiccups, uninterrupted for several days and nights, prevented the
ingestion of food. My left side and one of my vocal cords became paralyzed.
Some form of pleurisy (inflammation of the lining surrounding the lungs) set
in, and I felt I was drowning in a sea of slime. In one of my lucid intervals
during those days of agony, I asked my physician to discontinue all
life-supporting services or show me how to do it.” His physician denied his request and said
rather loftily, “someday I would appreciate
the unwisdom of my request.”
Well, whether Professor Hook ever appreciated
the intervention or not, one thing was clear to him, he still insisted on ending
his life for three reasons. He might suffer another debilitating stroke, this time
even more crippling than the one before. Second, he wanted to spare his family
the nightmarish experience. And thirdly, he felt that “medical resources were being pointlessly expended.”
At this point in the book, Christopher wrote,
“In the course of his essay, he
(Professor Hook) used a potent phrase to describe the position of others who
suffer like this, referring to them as lying on “mattress graves””. I guess
this funereal mood was not too far from how Christopher himself must have felt
in his own cursed trials. Of course, he fought valiantly to the end. But even
so, this was the same person who wrote, “I’m
not fighting or battling cancer – it’s fighting me.”
As an atheist, and the leading champion for its causes,
Christopher received many responses from the religious community when news of
his terminal illness broke out. In the book, he mentioned a few of them and the
strangest response is from a website. It reads, "Who else feels Christopher Hitchens getting terminal throat cancer
(sic) was God's revenge for him using his
voice to blaspheme him? Atheists like
to ignore FACTS. They like to act like everything is a "coincidence".
Really? It's just a "coincidence" that out of any part of his body,
Christopher Hitchens got cancer in the one part of his body for blasphemy?
Yeah, keep believing that, Atheists. He's going to writhe in agony and pain and
wither away to nothing and then die a horrible agonizing death, and THEN comes
the real fun, when he's sent to HELLFIRE forever to be tortured and set afire."
This letter worries me a lot.
I wonder what kind of god is
the writer worshipping? I wonder how would his god view his action? I wonder
why is he filled with so much hatred for atheists? For Christopher, he took it
all in his stride. The absurdity of the letter was an easy target for him and
his riposte was vintage Hitchens. You will have to read his book at page 13 to
get a feel of how the master critic did it. But while some believers poured
scorn on him, there were others who offered encouragement and prayers. There
was even a day
designated for him on 20 September 2010 called "Everybody Pray for Hitchens Day."
Many had wished Christopher to make a deathbed conversion.
These people came from all religious backgrounds. There were reputable
Catholics, Jews and Protestants. Even a song was dedicated to him by Cat
Stevens (or Yusuf Islam) called "I
Think I See the Light". During such time, Christopher was spoiled for religious
choices and a person of his sharp wit would not let the opportunity to make a
godless splash slip by.
This
was what he wrote about the floodgates of religious
persuasions available to him in the face of the fragility of his mortality.
"And this apparent ecumenism has
other contradictions, too. If I were to announce that I had suddenly converted
to Catholicism, I know that Larry Taunton and Douglas Wilson (who were
Protestant evangelical conservatives) would feel I had fallen into grievous
error. On the other hand, if I were to join either of their Protestant
evangelical groups, the followers of Rome would not think my soul
was much
safer than it is now, while a later-in-life decision to adhere to Judaism or
Islam would inevitably lose me many prayers from both fractions. I sympathize
afresh with the mighty Voltaire, who, when badgered on his deathbed and urged
to renounce the devil, murmured that this was no time to be making enemies.”
True to the end, Christopher advised the religious world
at large to save their prayers for themselves. He did not see how prayers could
work for him. In the book, he cited the study carried out by the Therapeutic
Effects of Intercessory Prayer of 2006 as proof that there is “no correlation at all between the number and
regularity of prayers offered and the likelihood that the person being prayed
for would have improved chances.” What is interesting in the study was how
there could actually be a negative correlation, “in that some patients suffered slightly additional woe when they failed
to manifest any improvement. They felt that they had disappointed their devoted
supporters.”
A man of sheer pragmatism and cold logic, Christopher
wrote these sympathetic words to his religious well-wishers, “I don’t mean to be churlish about any kind
intentions, but when September 20 comes, please do not trouble deaf heaven with
your bootless cries. Unless, of course, it makes you feel better.”
At this junction, and strictly from a religious
perspective, I wonder what God thinks about this rebellious child of his.
Unlike the Prodigal son who finally returned to a hearty feast, what welcome (or
disappointment) awaits Christopher? For a man who stood in utter defiance
against his divine Creator, how would judgment be meted out to him?
For many, it seems like a foregone conclusion and the
trite narrative goes something like this:
Christopher would face a Christ-less eternity. He did not repent when given the
many opportunities and this is therefore his irredeemable fate. He had made his
bed and now upon death, in complete rejection of God, he has to sleep on it…most
probably in the burning pits of fiery hell.
This is the point when I generally give pause
and think about it in a more sympathetic, humanistic light. I try to picture
Christopher Hitchens (“CH’) and God having this dialogue with each other before
the sentence of
eternal condemnation is pronounced. This is another self-indulgence, so please pardon me as I bring this to an end.
CH: Is that it? Hell for me? For eternity?
God: Yes. Next.
CH: Wait...wait. I repent. I now know better.
God: You had your chances. You turned away.
You rejected me remember?
CH: Yes...but now I see you in the flesh. I
can hear you. I feel you. I am ready to accept.
I accept!
God: It's too late. It is written...
CH: But this is the first time I see
you in
full regalia majesty. I can't argue with that anymore. You are real. I am
convinced. I receive.
God: My son came and died...
CH: Yes...yes. That was millennia ago. As long
as I had lived, I did not see him. He did not make any appearance. I ask for a
definite sign and I got crazy people telling me crazy things. None of them
showed any proof. There’s nothing I can put my trust on. And by the way, where
is he anyway?
Jesus: Here I am....on his right...
CH: Oh...you are really there...you are real
(stunned)
God: Yes, we are all real.
CH: Ok, it's all clear to me now. Can I have a
second chance? Please…
God: It is already written. Next.
CH: Wait...surely I don't deserve hell,
especially for eternity. I have done nothing wrong except to use what you have
given me to the fullest. It is just unfortunate that I used it against you
instead of for you. But I am only human. I make mistake. It was an error in
judgment. To err is human...to forgive is well you? Shit, Richard and Sam would
be in for such a shock of their life! (murmurs)
God: My son is the only way. You openly
rejected him. It is too late.
CH: What is too late? Surely this is all
technicality right? (panicky) Compared to a mass murderer who repents before
heaving his last breath and me who repent just after, aren't we splitting hair?
God: It is written. Next.
CH: I know it is written. Please unwrite it.
Eternity is such a long time for an error of judgment. I have lived an honest
life...well as best as I know how. I am flawed. I am far from perfect. Apart
from that, I am no evil person. I am like so
many of those people who have made
it to heaven. What's the difference between them and I? Maybe I just think
more, reflect more and come to a conclusion that I now regret. My only sin is
to live an examined life. Surely that doesn't warrant eternal condemnation?
And
by the way, is Socrates in heaven?
God: Chris, my son, you have lived the way you
wanted, forsaking that which is important in your life and the life thereafter.
You used what I have given you to rebel against all that is good. Now you are
paying the price for
it. It is too late for you.
CH: Too late? What is too late? Oh God, Oh
God, if only you came to me when I cried out for you in my youth. If only you
appeared just once to me when I was drowning in doubts, it would have change
the course of my life. And what a formidable change it would have been to have
someone like me on your side! Imagine a mid-life conversion and the books and
tours I could have embarked on to tell the world about you! So, why? Why play
this game of hide and seek when it is somehow rigged in a way that you
can
never be found until it's too late? Why this divine elusiveness, hiding in
the shadows, making stillness your cover, always insinuating but never openly
revealing, telling me about a past narrative that leaves so much evidential
loopholes, leaving broken trails, dastardly discontinuities, questions that can
never be answered? Why... why?
God: Faith, my son. Faith.
CH: Faith? All that because of faith? And I am
hereby sentenced to eternal condemnation without
any chance of a divine parole
all because I had earnestly questioned the substance of things hope for and
evidence of things I could not see and came to the opposite conclusion? Do you
know how many sincere people out there will be going to hell because they put
their faith in reason rather than their faith in faith? And I suppose those
religious fanatics who clamored for my horrendous death by extreme torture are
in heaven now because they showed more nebulous faith than valorous brains!
God: Chris, no one stands before my mercy
throne except you. You are being judged and you are being judged alone. It is
already written. Now depart from me. Next…
CH: …mercy? (look of utter dismay and
incredulity)…
Cheerz.
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