Her husband passed away.
I read the words sent via text.
Then I read them again.
Less than three weeks prior, we had been seated across from one another at a wedding reception. We were laughing, joking, filling awkward silences with unimportant commentary. He had looked good; healthy, happy.
She was in her early 60’s and had chosen to retire early to share time with him, a move I heard had been prompted by the untimely death of a friend.
Life is short; let’s enjoy it together while we can.
He had happily left the work world several years prior. The goals of the next phase were to explore, travel, and enjoy.
But then, a devastating irony. During what should have been a celebratory vacation, he had collapsed.
And then he was gone.
He is gone.
The words feel cruel and stir a heavy feeling of the inevitable. They also carry a reminder that none of us controls the future. No matter how hard we try, no matter how much we think we do.
A memory surfaces. I am seated across from an older friend who is smiling at me impishly. I have just asked her why life is so filled with pain and struggle, suffering and death.
“What if the moral to the story, my dear Dyana, is that there is no moral to the story?”
While I smile and shake my head, I shiver inwardly.
I have searched desperately for meaning my entire life. I naively want to believe there is a purpose for all of it – the pain and sadness, the joy and wonder.
And here my friend the nihilist has suggested it’s all pointless. And she’s okay with it.
Later, in an existential panic, I embark on a Google-search-for-answers and stumble across Steve Jobs.
“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…Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people’s thinking. Don’t let the noise of others’ opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.”
And I realize my answer is right there: To let go of the questioning and use the experience as a reflection. Facing the inevitable, we can all ask ourselves how it is we truly want to live, then act accordingly.
I have no words to offer for unexpected loss, nothing to say that will appease it. I do know, however, that the older I grow in this world, the more I feel I must prepare; we all must prepare.
This life is here, then gone…and in these fleeting moments all we truly have is now.
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