Deadline:  the latest time or date by which something should be completed.

(Historical) a line drawn around a prison beyond which prisoners were liable to be shot.

 

 

We are all running on a deadline.

There is an invisible Best Before date stamped upon each of us. Some of our deadlines appear more obvious than others. It is easier to see in those with a terminal illness or the very old. Mostly we keep death carefully hidden from view.

But this year Death had its very own coming out party. A global event! Like the debutante at her ball, Death is heady with its power.

Years ago, I read Death with Interruptions by José Saramago. The premise was simple.  In an undisclosed location, the grim reaper takes a holiday. At first the mood is celebratory. Then the reality sinks in; people in horrible accidents, mangled beyond repair, remain alive. Those incapacitated with disease or age, often in unmanageable pain, destined to keep breathing.  The system overloads. The horror is ongoing. Clearly, death is necessary. There is a cycle, a beginning and ending to every living thing.

Here’s the little I know about dying.  We do not spend our last moments thinking about the expensive sofa we bought or our great new stove in our renovated kitchen. Instead, we recall our relationships. We remember expressions of love, gestures of kindness, those beautiful moments that make our lives worth living.

 

 

 

In case we missed the memo,  Nature endlessly demonstrates this cycle.  In spring, buds that have no business pushing through dark deadwood, appear, bright and electric green. In summer, the flowers burst out in their velvet glory. And then, it is fall and we watch as the decay scatters the now-browning petals to the cold ground. By winter, all that we see is blackened stalks, lifeless and bleak.

And the wheels on the bus go round and round.

 

 

Light is defined by shadow.

Life is bounded by death.

The question that faces each of us, whether we live in a hut or a palace, is what to do with the unknown time limit in our life’s lottery.

I have reached the sage old age of 60 and feel I have a few answers. Not as many answers as I’d like but this is one declaration I can make:

Life is a gift.

Some will exclaim, “….but my life is on hold!” But darling, time is not waiting.  The invisible clock is still ticking.

The challenge then is to live the best version of ourselves, whether we’re behind a mask or not.

“Wait…” says another, “I can’t live in this purgatorial limbo!”  Um, yes, we can. We already are.

Life is a game of chance. I was born in Canada. I could just have easily been born in a refugee camp (which to me must be the worst possible limbo).

Apparently, I had no hand in this lottery. Dear readers, we are among the fortunate ones (this comparison is not to belittle anyone’s grief. I am familiar enough with sorrow to tell you that human anguish does not diminish based on your address).

For those of us blessed enough to still be here, it behooves us to live as fully as possible. We need to breathe deeply and find the things that bring us and those around us some joy. We are to grab life with both hands. This does not mean we are meant to float around in a perpetual state of happiness. I am so tired of those books. I am quite sure we are not meant to be happy all the time.

 

 

 

Melancholy and despair has produced some of our world’s best art. Hell, how can we sing along and identify with the blues if those composers, and ourselves, had never felt sadness to begin with? There are the mundane aspects of life too.  It doesn’t matter how much mindfulness I bring to the experience, I still don’t like cleaning a toilet. But chores are also part of our days.

Now joy, joy is something I can get behind. Joy are those moments when someone smiles at you with the kindest of eyes. Joy is that light-hearted moment when a pup tumbles sideways with enthusiasm. Joy is that euphoria of reaching the top of the mountain. Joy are those random high notes, those bits of light that brighten our everyday world.

What I’m suggesting then, is that life is for feeling. Feeling it all. The hurt, the sadness, the comic, the health or the lack, the ridiculous and the sublime.

In between, we must find something that finds us asking…where did the time go? This thing does not have to measure to anyone else’s standards. It could be the satisfying completion of a puzzle or the reading of a book or the hike up a hill or the wonder of writing a sentence. And then another…

The answers are as varied as there is humanity.

So here we are, at the beginning of our agreed-upon newest of years. Granted it continues to be a time circumscribed by a highly-infectious and potentially deadly virus. There IS that.

But we have some agency; we get to choose what’s next for ourselves.

Might I offer a few choices to start?

Choose kindness. Choose peace. Choose helpfulness. 

 

And finally I would suggest asking more questions than pretending to have answers.

And though this particular query has been stitched to pillows and printed on posters, I still believe Mary Oliver asked it best,

 

Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?” 

 

 

 

 

Dear Reader,

Thank you for being part of my reason for writing.

If you like reading these posts, please do me a favour and share them.

If you don’t, well, please go work quietly on your puzzle.

Happiest of the Newest of Years!