The Inconvenience of Death

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

US Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina died Saturday night just hours after returning from a fact-finding trip to Ukraine where he met with Ukrainian President Zelenskyy.   Graham passed away from what was initially described by his staff as a "brief and sudden" illness, but was later said to be a heart issue, specifically a tear in the aorta, the body's largest artery.

Graham, a Republican and lawyer who served as a JAG officer in the Air Force Reserve, was elected to the US House of Representatives in 1995 and served four terms leaving in 2004 to assume a seat in the US. Senate.  While in the House Graham became known for being one of the House managers of the Bill Clinton impeachment trial.

Lindsey Graham was elected to the US Senate from South Carolina in the fall of 2003 and was sworn into office in January of 2004.  He served there for the remainder of his life and was just months short of completing his fourth six-year-term at the time of his death.  He was running for a fifth term and was widely expected to win, a move that would have placed the silver-haired, 71-year-old senator well into the senate gerontocracy.

As a member of the US Senate, Lindsey Graham worked diligently at self-promotion.  He became of protege of Republican Senator John McCain of Arizona and was a frequent visitor to Phoenix and Sedona.  Graham ran for the Republican 2016 presidential nomination before dropping out early in the race.  During that campaign he referred to Donald Trump as a "race-baiting, xenophobic, religious bigot" and a "kook" who was "unfit for office," so Graham's judgment was sound at that point in his life, but seemed to cloud, at least with regard to Trump, as both men aged.  McCain broke with Trump before his death by being the deciding vote not to repeal President Obama's Affordable Care Act, something for which Trump never forgave him - and went on to be critical of the Arizona senator well after his death.

But Lindsey Graham knew who had the ability to butter his toast, and quickly began warming up to Trump and establishing a bond that led Graham to become one of Trump's regular golfing partners.

At the time of his death, Senator Graham appeared to have three major focuses in his life:  a strong appreciation of war and war-spending with steadfast support of Ukraine and Israel, licking Donald Trump's golf shoes, and appearing on Sunday morning talk shows.   The morning after his death he was to have appeared on NBC's "Meet the Press" for the 64th time.  Trump phoned "Meet the Press" the morning after Senator Graham's death and proceeded to heap praise on Graham as well as on himself, and so did Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu who referred to the deceased US Senator as a "beloved friend."

On Saturday evening Senator Graham told a friend and later Donald Trump in phone calls that he was not feeling well, but declined suggestions that he see a doctor and said instead:  

"I can't die now.  I still need to do the Russia sanctions, get Iran sorted out, and do Israeli-Saudi normalization."

Senator Graham' quasi-prescient remark put me in mind of the Emily Dickinson poem, "Because I Could Not Stop for Death." the first stanza of which follows:

"Because I could not stop for Death - 

He kindly stopped for me - 

The Carriage held but just Ourselves - 

And Immortality."

Death often comes as a surprise and an inconvenience.   Assume He's in the neighborhood looking for your house, and try to have things in good order for a sudden departure, or, as we used to say in the Scouts:  "Be prepared."