On Surviving What We Never Thought We Could
"I hope it is true that a man can die and yet not only live in others but give them life, and not only life, but that great consciousness of life." - Jack Kerouac
On December 26th, 2022, a local child we all knew and loved died.
Gone.
A child. A ripe bulb of overflowing verdant life removed from among the living and placed among the dead.
Dead.
The word was deafening as I stumbled away from the news in a haze. Dead and Child are two words that are so rarely and so extraordinarily unbearable in their intertwine.
How are we, as adults, people that survived being a child, supposed to organize this disorder in our feeble, order-hungry minds? This was not the way it was supposed to go. This is not the way it is supposed to be.
The death of a child, or death as a concept isn't explained like information, like why the sky is blue or why planes are able to stay suspended in the sky. Death as a concept is delivered with a heavy thump upon our hearts, when we least expect it, and in a complete fog of gripping-at-nothing blankness. The finality lands a disorienting blow.
It came for me when my Sunday school teacher lost her battle to cancer. I still remember, age six, being sat in the cold dark corridors of our family church with the wood paneling and unanswered questions, wondering where my teacher had gone. My Sunday askew. Where were the hugs and huge smiles and happy songs and my life as I expected it to be?
Death came when my Grandfather's tired lungs were robbing him of the grace and repose he had shown all my life. He didn't smell like peppermint anymore, it was iodine and sterilizers and the baby powder depression of a hospice clinic. He was ripping out his IV and escaping into the humid air and trying to free himself of the solemn truth that his body was failing and the door to death was slowly creaking open. He wasn't ready to be pushed through to the other room. Even though that room probably smelled like fresh cut grass from his football days and the acrid foam of a cold beer and the salty sweet air of the Florida Keys as he lowered his vessel into the tarpon infested waves. It would be better, but he couldn't taste the sweetness yet. It wasn't until after we left that night did he finally peak in and decide it was time to go.
Death came as I held my dear friend Al's hand as his gentle eyes filled with tears, while he reckoned with the meager amount of time that was left. He was always counting. He always knew the score. His courage was remarkable as he accepted that raw, singeing truth that he would not get his life back. His routine, his cats, his friends, and his Del Norte. As his oxygen levels dropped, his wit and wisdom did not. He was himself until the end. Comfortable dying alone, just as he lived.
Death came for my precious Nana after being battered by innumerous strokes. 90-something, freshly extricated from her own apartment and car. She watched every one of her grandchildren grow into dynamic adults. She traveled to Europe, with much fanfare, and was doted on by parliamentarians and handsome men alike. Now, she lay supine, calm, and decidedly not her silly, sparky self. Her mind and body alive, but severely weakened, she enjoyed the whole of her favorite album by Ella Fitzgerald. She channeled what little energy she had slipping through her fingers into that sweet music and mouthed the words with passion. Death was imminent, but life still prevailed in those precious moments. She slipped away a few days later.
Divorce knocks the wind out of us, just like a death. We know the threat but we don't know the pain until it arrives on our doorstep. We paint blood on our door and declare "it's over" and we think we are okay, we think we are ready, and we tell ourselves that we can handle it. Then the air disappears even more and we are left gasping. Heaving our chests to catch our breath, and take hold of the life we thought we had. The person we thought we loved. The future we thought was ours. We mourn someone that still walks the earth, their life a curious shadow of our past.
Death came for my mentor and dad-like small-town hero Morris Aves, on his birthday this year, with a full belly of breakfast his wife made just for him. He said goodbye, went to his shop, and that was it. I texted him happy birthday that morning and he responded with glad tidings and asked how things were in my world.
Because of the aforementioned divorce I didn't respond to the question, not keen to saddle him with my sadness. I reflect on this and wish I had picked up the phone and leveled with him. I wish I had ruined his birthday with my personal problems. Maybe then he would have taken some time away from his tasks and maybe he would have had a seat and given me advice and my sadness would have prevented the accident that took his life. But I won't ever know about this because life happened another way, and death had other plans. Morrie was meant to leave this earth even though I struggle to understand why.
We can all get stuck inside the second guessing and the what-ifs and the counterfactual ideas that separate us from what-is. The blame is a bitch. The if-onlys are toxic. But sometimes the sting of acceptance is just too much to bear.
Astoundingly, death is all around us all the time. Death is insulting in it's commonness, but always assumes a rogue, hideous face when it comes for us. For our people. For our lovers and friends. When it's too soon, or unexplained, and even when we see it coming.
I still remember the last afternoon I spent around dear Josephine. She was an untamed little spirit keen to get your attention, discover everything, and live voraciously in the moment.
I fancy myself the kind of person that attempts to exemplify this present-tense existence. This hunger. This larger than life energy. But that day, she really showed me up. She reflected back that I had a lot to learn.
That afternoon my brain was bogged down with anxiety and fear and an all-too-familiar adult desire to prove myself. I needed to invest in real estate and focus on the future and learn a new skill and financially insulate myself against risk.
I was singularly focused on my vision for a particular plot of land, and I was pushing to learn from the other adults present, how I could create and sustain some life in the wild Colorado wilderness.
Instead, I think in that moment I needed to pay attention to the dough eyed ball of energy buzzing around me. I needed to harness my child-like, self-loving, world-embracing energy. I needed to remember that everything will be okay, and I didn’t need to prove myself worthy. I needed to remember that I have everything I need. I could have nodded to my abundance. I could have witnessed the beauty around me. Instead, I had to be taught through loss. Damn it.
I ended up having the enormous privilege to purchase the property with which I was so preoccupied that day.
I will never forget the first time I stepped foot on the ranch and felt the all-encompassing certitude of yes. Of the need to build something here. Of the need to connect with this land.
Back then, I thought it was my story to raise my children in that sage brush. I imagined a skinny little wire-haired girl running from the house out into the field. I told myself that was a subconscious vision of the wild little girl to which I would give birth and life and clothes and food and adventure in the neat little packaged life I thought was mine.
But I was wrong about that vision. I bought the land without a husband, without a partner, without the all-too-familiar adult impulse to have everything worked out. I bought it in a time of gut wrenching pain and confusion and loss. I bought it without a plan, but with a deep sense of knowing that I would come up with one eventually. Even though a few kids by 35 doesn’t seem to be what is in store for me, I will remain open to what-is.
Maybe instead the vision of the little girl was little me. Or maybe it was the childlike spirit reflected by Josephine. The embodiment of wonder, of hunger, of openness to the beauty all around us.
I look forward to finding out. That earth is my playground, and I will do my best not to forget that.
Death is not the end. I won’t forget that either.
"Death is our friend precisely because it brings us into absolute and passionate presence with all that is here, that is natural, that is love." - Rainer Maria Rilke