"It's a Good Day to Die"

I've been pondering the phrase “It's a good day to die.” I've always equated these words with those movies having American Indian themes where this phrase is written into their scripts as the thing one Red Man says to another before they go into battle. Taken in that context, my perception is that it's a macho statement; conceited, warrior-like, and selfish. No matter what the squaw and her kiddos are going to do left back at the tee pee without their provider. No matter that these beautiful hunks of filmdom bodies will be destroyed on a battlefield.

My husband never used those words in his last days. What he did do was have me help him into his recliner draped with the hide of a young buffalo. He settled his beaver bag filled with his chanupa into the crook of his left arm and with a cup of coffee nearby. From this vantage point, he watched the Earth come awake. What he thought or what insights he gained there I'll never know. He was too weak to tell me. His consciousness wasn't in the realm of forming words or concepts. My guess is that he was just experiencing the morning, being in it, and relishing every second of the coming of the light. I was the one who thought the words as I padded back to bed.

So I tested these words out loud on myself recently. “It's a good day to die,” I said to all that was around me. My system shocked awake. Muscles grew taut. I instantly wanted to take the words back in case some force beyond me heard them and decided to take me up on my thought.

“Erase . . . Erase,” I said until I realized my muscles weren't frozen in fear. They were on an edge, ready for something.

Ready for what?

Not war or destruction, and definitely not dying.

But ready for life, for living to their fullest extent. To do whatever was in front of them, be it hauling in wood, writing the next novel, sitting in the warmth of the fire and listening to the rain on the roof.

Just ready.