Dying is inevitable, but nobody wants to die, not really.
Not when you’re five.
Or when you’re twenty-two.
Especially not when you’re thirty-six or forty-eight.
Maybe in your nineties, even eighties, is that a good age to die?
When you’re old and have lived a full life?
Is there a good day or a good time to slip away into eternity?
Yesterday, I witnessed three sisters, ages 69, 80, and 85. The oldest had tripped and fallen, breaking her hip.
Twenty-seven years ago, their mother did the same thing, but she didn’t recover and within days had a stroke and died.
They’ve all lived and loved and shared but at that moment, the one where understanding meets reality that they could lose a sister, it didn’t matter about the full life she had lived, they wanted the afternoon, the tomorrow, the next week, next month, the rest of the year, and the rest of her life.
They wanted her to be here. To be present. Tangible. Grief deepened the lines of their foreheads, settled on their quivering lips, and humped backs.
Not ready to let one go. Not today. Not at eighty-five. And she lived. Another day. Another tomorrow. And the sisters held on for more.
Loss, no matter the age, is a painful emptiness.
And I’m remorseful for the many times I spoke of a full-life carelessly, because life is never really full, not even at eighty-five.
Ellis Monroe, a character in the book Before You Were Born, faced the uncertainties of cancer and death. He wasn’t ready to let go of life. His wife of almost fifty years, his daughter and grandkids, graduations and parties, marriages and celebrations, gifts of his time, of his presence, he didn’t want to relinquish.
His story, like many of the precious people around us, is a story of endurance, unconditional love, and a will to live even when the time comes to an abrupt end.
Today I challenge you to love, to forgive, and to embrace, because time waits for no one.
Live in the overflow of life and cherish each new day.
Another blog post on how book characters imitate real life.
“No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life’s change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new.” ~Steve Jobs
