Life

Trite phrases all: "Live each day to the fullest;" "Don't take anything for granted;" "None of knows when it will be our turn;" and my personal favorite, "Life is too short to (fill in the blank)."

And yet every one of these stupid statements is great advice. We don't know how long we have. We should live each day to the fullest. But our own personal protection devices prevent us from doing just those things. We don't think that we are going to die tomorrow. We don't think that today may be the last. We think that our lives stretch out in front of us ad infinitum and that we have all the time in the world to do what we want, to reach our goals, to enjoy life, to make things right, to stop and smell the roses.

The truth is, of course, that we don't. This week, I am surrounded by the abruptness of life, the fragility of life, the admonition, "In the midst of life we are in death."

Logically, my Sunday School teachers told me, we begin dying the moment we are born. Our progress is through life and toward death, and toward what waits for us. It sounded fine when I was untouched by sadness, when all I knew and loved were living and vital and joyous and part of my days. It sounded as if what would happen would be far away. It wasn't real. It wasn't tangible. And when death finally occurred, we would be gently taken to something better than what we were experiencing here on this earth. That was fine with me then.

It continued being fine, because all I knew and loved continued to live and be vital and joyous and part of my days. My parents, my grandparents, even my great-grandmother and great-uncle lived their days, and because I was fine with life's progression toward death, a long time away, I treated those I knew and loved the way Emily told the Stage Manager I did, and everyone else on earth treats those they know and love: I didn't look at them, I didn't treasure each day with them, I didn't hold them close enough.

And then, death began touching my life, first my grandmother, whose demise came not from her Parkinson's Disease, but from a fall she took as she was walking for exercise. A few years later, my great-grandmother decided that 102 years was all she wanted to stay here. And then within a short three years, my grandfather stopped wanting to live in three centuries, my father succumbed to his years of cigarette smoking, and my maternal grandmother, after a massive brain stem stroke, finally gave up after 26 days of trying not to.

I didn't see, anymore, that death seemed this inanimate, benign thing that we all approached as a natural part of what happened from the moment we are born. It became insidious, vile, intruding on all I knew and loved, making me hurt in a way I had not before. Even then, however, it was coming in some sort of logical order - those I lost had spent long periods of time on this earth, they were falling in the expected order: Oldest, older, old.

And then, it started invading other parts of my life: a friend from law school, the husband of another friend, and then another, and then another, a friend's daughter - how unfair is that! - siblings of friends, and friends. My life, by measurement, became shorter and shorter. My expectations became worrisome and fearful. But then, of course, my personal protection devices kicked in, and life became uneventful for a while, lulling me back into the false security that all is well, all will continue to be well, and all will always be well. My husband was well. My daughter was well. The rest of my family was well. I could look past those horrid events and focus on looking at my family and friends, holding them close, treasuring them.

Until death, that dark shadowy figure that probably smirks most of the time, started lurking around again, hiding around corners, in alleys, finding more of those who mean much to me, and those whose lives are my life's measurements. "Begone!" I say."Begone!" He doesn't go.

He approaches.

Live life anyway. Love, hold, treasure. Live.