My husband and I love theater, especially musicals and comedy. So, when we recently had the opportunity to see Spamalot, we were thrilled because we got the best of both worlds. One of our favorite scenes in Spamalot was the “I’m Not Dead Yet” skit. If you’ve ever seen Monty Python and the Holy Grail, surely you remember the famous “Not Dead Yet” scenario when the death cart comes around (this takes place during the Dark Ages, mind you) to pick up dead bodies, and one old man, refusing to be piled on top of the heap, keeps insisting, “I’m not dead yet. I feel happy!” Add to this already hilarious skit a song, with the “not dead yet” man singing, “I’m not dead yet. I can dance and I can sing,” and you have hilarity at its satirical best.

My husband and I have adopted this saying between us when a situation arises that merits reminding each other that, indeed, there is life left to be found. For instance, yesterday Jim noted that the small plants sitting on the window sill in the kitchen looked dead. I admitted that I had not been giving them their daily sip of water, which they require at this time of year as the sun gets hotter against the window pane where they sit. They’ll do fine in the autumn and winter months with just a weekly watering, but in the spring and summer, they need just a little each day to keep them green and happy. I looked at the yellow and brown leaves and said, “I’m just going to throw them away and start new plants. They’re just too far gone.” But this morning, as I started to dump one of the plants into the trash can, I noticed tiny green shutes starting at the center of the dead mess. So, instead of dumping them out, I began to pinch back the crispy stems and leaves, leaving just the new growth. And, of course, I watered them well. I showed one to Jim, and using my best British accent, I declared, “I’m not dead yet.”

I was thinking just how true that is about so many things in this world. Sometimes we’re ready to count someone else or even ourselves out when it appears that there’s no hope left. But quite often, we get a surprise when we find out that “we’re not dead yet.”

A friend of mine in the pug rescue group told a fish story of her own after reading about Elvis’ contribution to the demise of our betta fish (see The Good, The Bad, The Pug in The Tao of Pugs). It seems she had to go out of town on business, and while she was gone, she left her husband in charge of her pugs and her betta fish. Worrying that he might not be trustworthy, she left him typed instructions on the feeding and care of the pugs and the fish. Upon her return four days later, all seemed well except with one of her betta fish, Fred. He lay curiously still on the bottom of his vase. When she asked her husband about him, he claimed not to notice anything amiss, until she reminded him that Fred’s vase was in the kitchen on the counter, and not with the other betta fish. He guiltily admitted that he had forgotten about Fred. She kept trying to feed him and coax him to the top of the vase, but he would not move. The next morning, she tried again, but he kept still on the bottom, so she got her fish net out, scooped him out, and released him in the toilet bowl for his burial at sea. Amazingly, when she released him, he started to swim furiously around the toilet bowl. She quickly cleaned his vase, and rescued him from the toilet bowl. He still refused to eat, but by the next morning, he hungrily gulped down four fish pellets! She said the moral of her fish story was when you’re dumped in the toilet bowl, swim for your life!

I think there is a healing message here for us all. Sometimes when things look dead, they’re really not. Maybe some dead wood needs to be removed, or maybe we need a jolt in the toilet bowl, but before we give up, we might just want to join in with a rousing chorus of “We’re not dead yet; we can dance and we can sing, we’re not dead yet; we can dance the Highland Fling … We’re not dead yet, no need to go to bed, no need to call the doctor cause we’re not yet dead.”