My husband’s father just passed away. He had been married 65 years. He had 4 children, 5 grandchildren and 1 great-grand child. What a great legacy! He would have been 84 next month and though it’s still sad, it’s a lot easier to say goodbye to someone who’s had a long productive life.
Unfortunately death strikes at its own fancy and there’s no knowing who will be next.
A dear friend of ours committed suicide last December. He was in his late forties.
Another friend just died. He went to the hospital last week and found out he had stage 4 colon cancer. Seven days later, he was gone. He was in his early fifties.
An acquaintance of my sister’s died from breast cancer recently. She was 29, a young wife and mom to a toddler.
Our beloved librarian who holds the best story time every Thursday just was diagnosed with Leukemia. He’s still young. He’s a husband. He’s a father.
Death and sickness are in my mind right now. I’ll be 42 in just a few weeks. There’s a little more silver shining in my hair. There are new aches in my hips and joints. I’m not getting any younger and death is gonna come get me some day.
Nothing like staring mortality in the eyes to put life in perspective.
I think about what has gotten me annoyed in the past few days: the water all over my bathroom floor after my daughter washed her hands; the scooter she just left lying in the yard when she was done.
I think about the anxiety triggers: the stuff in my carport shelf that “needs” to be put away; the paperwork piled up on my desk; the to dos marked on my calendar that I’ve been moving to tomorrow every day for about 3 weeks now.
This is the stuff of life that can’t be ignored but doesn’t warrant the energy I let it suck out of me.
Fact: I’m going to die.
Fact: I don’t know when.
Fact: If I was diagnosed with a life threatening illness tomorrow, I wouldn’t care about organizing the shelves, clearing my desk or addressing the calendar to dos and no one would hold it against me.
How can I reconcile the necessities of Living with the reality of Dying? How can I strike a balance?
Living comes with its share of mundanities that I cannot forever turn a blind eye to.
Yet the mundane should not be the end all be all of my days at the detriment of the sacred.
The urgent ought not supersede the important.
If I died tomorrow, my family wouldn’t care that I had washed the dishes, made the bed or answered the emails. My husband would care that we had trained together, that we had laughed together, that I had kissed him. My daughter would care that I had hugged her, played with her, read to her.
I can’t let the dishes pile up forever but I shouldn’t ignore what matters most.
I need to set and keep my priorities straight.
What will I do PRIOR to anything else?
Put meaningful before trivial.
Put relationships before things.
Put time together at the top of the list.
After I die, there will only be memories of me left.
They better be good ones!
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