It's been a difficult, loaded year for my family (as an extended, blubbery whole), with far too many hospitalizations, deaths, and unpleasant surprises. Talking on the phone just now with my cousin, she struck me by noting the above.
Time doesn't wait.
What do I do with death?
My cousin sees it as a call to faith. To be fair, she does most things, and while I don't know if for me, it's a call to religion necessarily, I do see the sense in examining tragedy beyond a mere surface level. It's tragic when somebody dies, loses a part of themselves, is somehow forever altered, but it's also filled with potential.
For certain, I see how illness has brought my family closer in ways over the past year that I wouldn't have anticipated. I keep coming back to "who would've thought", in the sense of "who knew it would come to this?".
If you knew you would arrive here - dying on an alien shore, surrounded by almost-strangers, losing limbs, burying people you never thought you'd bury - if we knew, would any of us have behaved differently? Last summer, but also in the last twenty years.
We keep thinking there's all this wealth of time, but there isn't, really. The opportunities you once believed you would have endlessly disappear from grasp at the drop of a hat. And that, also, is a tragedy worth considering.
Tragedy, perhaps, isn't the final form of the equation. Perhaps the final form is an invitation to transform. We get so caught up in the way things unfold naturally around that we forget how active we are, as participants, or at least can be. Death serves to remind you of that. That all the ways in which you are staying in a situation, a relationship, a place, a job, a stalemate, a resentment, all of these are elective. You are in charge more than you realize, and frankly, more than any of us like to know.
We're prone to letting life happen to us, when maybe what we should be asking is, how are we happening through life?
The choice is yours.
The consequences of making a wrong choice will be dire.
Of course, there's no knowing the future. There's no way to know, for instance, the plane you get on will crash, and is it your fault you didn't stay home? Not really. But these are extraordinary cases. Often, we know, we're more involved than we admit (perhaps even to ourselves).
Letting weeks pass us by without reaching out to a loved one is elective.
Saying yes out of sheer complacency when you know you'd be better served if you said no is also elective.
Betraying yourself in how you speak, how you act and whom you share your life with is a choice.
I'm very much a proponent of a "no regrets" kind of life - because what's the point? At the same time, that doesn't mean I'm a proponent of "no lessons". If it's up to me, I'll try not to regret what I've done, but I also won't sweep it under the rug. I will let the things that wash over me show me something, both the mistakes in my life, and the tragedies that come to those around me.
I wrote some weeks ago on the awkwardness of holding the dead accountable, but alas, it's in my nature. I would be lying if I claimed the bearers of these tragedies (ourselves included) bore no responsibility.
Loneliness, illness, tragic loss have all come to my family as a consequence, not as a happenstance, not as a fate being visited upon us, but as one we are actively involved in shaping.
Time doesn't wait.
I must make sure, then, I don't linger in places that are not for me, or lose touch with people I would rather keep close. Most of all, I must make sure I don't simply assume life will unravel around me and that I am helpless to affect it, because I am not.
My cousin and I are still at an age where we are learning how to deal and interact with death. It is still a novelty that seems quite far removed from our personal existence. At this stage, we can choose to traverse a difficult period, be momentarily shocked, then end up in the same place, as people often will during tragedy. We often say death reminds you of what truly matters, but six months later, we somehow rebecome amnesiacs.
Or we could strive to never fully leave being this memory, to remind ourselves actively, perhaps at the cost of some discomfort, and maybe lead fuller lives as a result. To assume we ourselves won't die simply because we're young would be foolhardy, but what we can reasonably assume is that we'll live lives that we're content with, and about which we can, in the spirit of Hunter Thompson, look back on and say "what a ride".
It won't be a given assumption, but one of active effort. But we can make it.
My lived experience was so different. My grandmother passed when I was 8, my father when I was 19, my grandfather when I was 21. My mother is still around, I'm still just south of 40.
It never gets easier to deal with it.
But, hey - if it were not for the end, the beginning and the middle wouldn't be special things, in fact, they wouldn't even need to exist.
I have the next five days all doing social events of various intensity. My "no regrets" and my "please, some quiet, I'm just an introvert" are going to have a few conflicts over the next few days.
I'm sure it doesn't.
I'm sorry your experience was like that. Must've been so difficult.
P.S. I hope your social time isn't too demanding. ;)
In order: my writers group
Friday night: dinner and a music thing with a friend
Saturday: metal gig with a different friend
Sunday morning: im running a writing workshop (i still need to prepare)
Monday night: Guess who is on the local gallery committee now and has to go to a committee meeting?
Also, new components for my wifes computer will be arriving so need to set that up for her also.
I'm very lucky I have posts scheduled due to my diligence on prior days meaning I have a backlog. :)
Honestly at the rate you write, I'd be surprised if you didn't ;)
A writing workshop? :O sounds very impressive. I can't wait to read about it! Also, what gig?
The blurb they gave me.. (this is not my writing)
The blurb I submitted was longerer. Much longer:
Oh, the concert: Reliqa
While I agree about cutting it short a bit, they certainly didn't do you justice. I'd come to your description, though. I hope you have a blast, regardless. And that you write about it afterwards ofc.
As for Reliqa, I'm gonna go do some editing now, so I'll see if they flow for the background. Will check them out anyway. Much gratitude :)
LE: Okay, maybe when I go for a walk. It sounds great from what I've heard, but too intense for my writing. Thanks!
My biggest thing as I get older is learning to embrace the boring moments that life has to offer. Those middle of the week everyday moments that often get overlooked because we are simply living for the weekend or those "mountaintop moments". So much of life takes place in the valley and if you aren't paying attention you miss it (to loosely quote Ferris Bueller).
Very true. I realize often boredom is something we struggle with more and more (esp thanks to the Internet), when in fact it's a wildly creative and fruitful part of life.
It's interesting because I often find myself sitting at a web browser thinking "there is nothing to do on the Internet" when really the world is basically at our fingertips. Funny how our minds work!
Death is a place for us humans, however, we have to let go of the people we love, even though it is difficult in our lives, but we have to be grateful for what is happening now.