We’ve lost a lot of good people this year.
That’s not something one expects to say in the first days of February.
Last week it was Brent Possin.
In January it was Jane Wagner.
At the end of 2023, Winston Evenson.
Brent farmed just up the road from my mom’s house. I went to school with his oldest daughter.
I didn’t know Brent particularly well, but had interacted with him and, of course, put pictures of his kids in the newspaper whenever I could.
It’s difficult when a community as close as this loses someone young. We’re left asking ourselves, “Why did this happen?”
I like to think God has a plan for everything, that a person's particular passing is part of a flow of events that work together toward some ultimate, currently inconceivable, end goal. Given my belief in a benevolent creator, I come back to the idea that “all things work together for good.”
At this time, this moment though, I’m having a hard time finding anything good in any of this.
One day, I believe we’ll have those answers.
My friend told me the other day, he believes, right before we die, we get all of life’s answers. He told me about the moment of his grandfather’s passing. Right before he died, his grandpa looked up, smiled very big, and said, “Irene [his deceased wife], you’re so beautiful.”
In the days since, I have come across a few stories from some folks' final moments.
Steve Jobs, apparently, moments before passing, said the words, “Oh wow, oh wow, oh wow!”
I, for one, do believe in God and something after. It gives me comfort.
However, it doesn’t always help with the why.
Walking back from lunch this week with Deb, she made the comment, “I wonder if, before we’re incarnated, we’re given a checklist of good and bad traits, favorable and unfavorable circumstances, and we’re supposed to choose.”
I don’t think I let her finish the sentence.
Thinking about my own life, my own pitfalls, troubles, blessings, and everything in between, I said I would have picked everything in my life up to this point. The good, bad and everything in between. Even the era of human history in which I’m living.
Current health problems included, I wouldn’t change a thing.
But what if I were diagnosed with an incurable disease tomorrow? Would I feel the same?
At the moment, no. There are a lot of things I have yet to do in life, and I might feel bitter that I wouldn’t be able to accomplish them all.
And my guess is; that feeling is universal.
Back to this incurable disease.
It would likely hasten my desire to continue life to the fullest. If I had little time to live, I would likely not work so much. I would do my best to make sure the newspaper continued printing and I would spend the rest of my time writing, traveling, and most importantly, spending time with those whom I love.
There would not be enough phone calls, Minnesota goodbyes, desserts, “one mores,” sunsets, sunrises, hugs, or I love you’s.
There wouldn’t be enough Christmas dinners. Enough birthday cake, long car rides, nights at the lake, games of cards or snuggles with a beloved pet.
I think we all get so caught up trying to do everything we need to do in life, necessary to “get the most out of it” that we forget what “getting the most out of life” really means.
Another friend and I were talking about “Yin and Yang,” good and bad, nothing and everything.
The opposite of nothing, my friend told me, isn’t something, it’s everything.
“If you have everything, you need nothing,” he said. “They’re opposites.
“The right place to be is right in between having everything and having nothing.”
A friend of mine is losing someone close to them to a slow cancer. One of my friends is also in the same situation. In light of this, the question was raised, is it better to die slowly, with an opportunity to say your goodbyes, or to go suddenly?
My answer to that question is “quickly.”
Thinking about this, it’s probably selfish.
My friend countered, but you don’t get to say goodbye.
I feel the people who mean the most to me know their position in my life; after all, I’ve told them.
I think of my dad for this example. He knows how much he means to me. We’ve talked about the good, bad and the ugly parts of our relationship throughout my life.
The thing I will miss most about my father, when his time comes, is him being by my side.
I find myself thinking of Blair Nelson again this evening. I wonder if he knew how important he was to me. He might have, but I took for granted that our time as friends would go on for years, even decades.
I told myself I didn’t need to rush those (important) conversations because there would be time. We talked nearly every day and I just wanted to soak in those moments while they were happening. So that’s what I did when I spent time with Blair. I kept myself present and attentive to whatever we were talking about at the time.
Is that what we’re supposed to do?
Or are we supposed to say the quiet part out loud? Express, in words, how important someone is to us?
As I consider the question, there is really only one practical answer: we make our own choices and move forward in the way that makes sense to us. Our actions represent who we are and our words let others know how we feel.
There’s no right or wrong way to express our feelings, or how to live. Our lives don’t come with owners’ manuals. If they did, I’d be really curious to see the chapter about what to do when faced with the sudden, unexpected loss of a loved one.
If only there were a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy for life here on the temporal plane.
“The chances of finding out what’s really going on in the universe are so remote, the only thing to do is hang the sense of it and keep yourself occupied.” - Richard Adams, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
“Protect me from knowing what I don’t need to know. Protect me from even knowing that there are things to know that I don’t know. Protect me from knowing that I decided not to know about the things that I decided not to know about. Amen.” - Also from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.