When we don't want to hear

"Listen to your life," says Buechner, and ever since my introduction to Mr. Buechner, I have tried to do just that. In some way, I think our lives are in constant communication with us; the events, the conversations, the tears, the laughter all are telling us something, anything, if only we will open the ears of our soul to hear whatever it is. But listening to your life often is the last damn thing you want to do. Not because you are busy, but because you don't want to hear what it is telling you.
My brother, a minister, unburdens that an old acquaintance of mine and friend of his has fallen into deep depression. Suicide is a concern. It made us both wonder about little Ellington where we grew up. The number of suicides both during and after our high school years involving Ellington's kids is in my mind staggering.
I call my father to discuss the future. His will. What will happen when he dies. He is already concerned about it--at 60 years old. He says his health has good days and bad days--he's concerned.
My reality is that I don't want to deal with it. I'd rather run from the reality of death. It scares me. Sure, I believe in an afterlife--I'm a christian. Not a good one, but one never-the-less. I don't like the status quo of life broken into and robbed. This acquaintance is young. But sometimes when life has a grip on you, leaving it seems the best option. Who can blame them? People get old and people die, but no one I was ever very close to. My dad's dad died when I was 6 months old. My two great-grandfather's that I remember died by the end of my high school years, and I don't know that I had a bond enough to really miss them.
What I want to know is why all this talk of death? What is the meaning behind it? And ultimately, do I really want to hear it?