Seize the day, seize whatever you can
'Cause life slips away just like hourglass sand
-Carolyn Arends
'Cause life slips away just like hourglass sand
-Carolyn Arends
This quote has been on my mind for the past couple of days. A throwback from my churchy years. But its message rings through so clearly sometimes. Life is short. Pay attention. There is only this.
My Uncle, my father's younger brother, is dying. I am not really looking for condolences as we are not close and rarely speak. He lives a perplexing life from my point of view. He does things that I cannot fathom. Like not disciplining his children because he 'loves' them. Or using the house note to buy illegal substances. But he is so young and has three young children. One born the week before Brother. Soon, he will no longer be at the family reunions. Will his wife, who doesn't get along with my grandmother still come? Will I ever see these first cousins born in a different generation again? Or very often, even.
And how must these children feel. I can't imagine. Two of them are so close in age to Brother that I can't help but think of my own child losing his father. Or me losing my husband. And tears well up in my eyes and spill over. What loss. What huge loss. It is moments and times like these that smack me in the face with the fragility of life. How in a moment, everything can change. How taking something like "two years from now" for granted seems foolhardy. This uncle of mine has no two years from now. The doctors are baffled and there is nothing they can do.
What does one do with a death sentence like that? You have a terrible disease and soon your life will end. What do you do? I guess we all assume we would quit our jobs and see the world. Travel to Everest and drive through Tuscany. See the Louvre. I don't know why we assume that if we hear the words "one year left" that we will suddenly become flush with money. I know my uncle's family is not. I know his wife drives ungodly distances to work everyday because she has to, to pay the rent and put food on the table. I am sure she would rather be home with her kids and her husband on some of the very last days they will have as a family. Maybe another March will not come for them. Maybe.
So, I am trying to remember how to live in this moment and still plan for the next, remembering the last. I am soaking in every second with my boys remembering that today is only for today. Tomorrow will be different. And I will miss every moment I am living right now. So let Brother sleep on the floor in my room and play the god-awful video games. There are a finite number of times he will ask for these things and a finite number of seconds in all of our lives. So let's make them good.
My Uncle, my father's younger brother, is dying. I am not really looking for condolences as we are not close and rarely speak. He lives a perplexing life from my point of view. He does things that I cannot fathom. Like not disciplining his children because he 'loves' them. Or using the house note to buy illegal substances. But he is so young and has three young children. One born the week before Brother. Soon, he will no longer be at the family reunions. Will his wife, who doesn't get along with my grandmother still come? Will I ever see these first cousins born in a different generation again? Or very often, even.
And how must these children feel. I can't imagine. Two of them are so close in age to Brother that I can't help but think of my own child losing his father. Or me losing my husband. And tears well up in my eyes and spill over. What loss. What huge loss. It is moments and times like these that smack me in the face with the fragility of life. How in a moment, everything can change. How taking something like "two years from now" for granted seems foolhardy. This uncle of mine has no two years from now. The doctors are baffled and there is nothing they can do.
What does one do with a death sentence like that? You have a terrible disease and soon your life will end. What do you do? I guess we all assume we would quit our jobs and see the world. Travel to Everest and drive through Tuscany. See the Louvre. I don't know why we assume that if we hear the words "one year left" that we will suddenly become flush with money. I know my uncle's family is not. I know his wife drives ungodly distances to work everyday because she has to, to pay the rent and put food on the table. I am sure she would rather be home with her kids and her husband on some of the very last days they will have as a family. Maybe another March will not come for them. Maybe.
So, I am trying to remember how to live in this moment and still plan for the next, remembering the last. I am soaking in every second with my boys remembering that today is only for today. Tomorrow will be different. And I will miss every moment I am living right now. So let Brother sleep on the floor in my room and play the god-awful video games. There are a finite number of times he will ask for these things and a finite number of seconds in all of our lives. So let's make them good.
"Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”
-Mary Oliver
-Mary Oliver
5 comments:
I think about this often, after someone I know became a very young widow. If I got that death sentence, I don't think my last days would be about me, but about those I would leave behind... about making sure they will be okay. In the meantime, I just try to be a good wife, a loving mother, a thoughtful daughter and sister. What more can you do?
This makes me cry.
Before kids, I feared death beause of the unknown. Now, I worry about leaving them behind; a much more intense fear--the sick to your stomach kind.
I too would focus on making sure they were ok; well taken care of and so on.
You know that song...'to live like you were dying' or whatever it's called...that song always gets to me. I, too, want to make sure every moment counts. And being in Norway this year, I have come to realize that all our stuff - the stuff we left behind in our house in Canada - is so unimportant. The most important thing we have, our greatest treasure, is TIME. Especially time with each other.
I don't know what I would do if it was snatched away from us.
I feel for your BIL and his family. Like you I cannot fathom what that must be like. My heart goes out to them.
And it does make me want to hug my children just one more time before bedtime tonight.
Take care - Heidi
Man. Talk about perspective.
My sympathies to all those affected.
Oh man, that is so terrible. Just thinking about this makes me tear up.
Those poor kids.
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