You would think that an awareness of one’s mortality would happen after a huge car accident.
You would think.
Then again, maybe the awareness would kick in after multiple accidents? Concussions, a pinned ankle, stitches, several whiplashes…surely it would start to register? And yet, although some of those accidents (in that misspent youth of mine) were worse than others, it never really occurred to me to think ‘I’ would end. Perhaps the clue lies in the words, ‘in my youth’. I think that’s it.
Being young, I believed I was immortal.
No wait. That’s not true. I didn’t even think about it. The possibility of actually dying did not occur to me no matter how much my mother cried or my father threatened.
But it was when my mother died that I understood something. I was 28, she was 63. I mourned, not only for her, but as we so often do, I mourned for myself. I realized that what also died with her were all the memories of me and all the things that I wanted/needed to know about her.
Memories that only she could tell me, for questions that I had not yet thought to ask. What time was I born? What was I like as a baby? Who did you think I looked like? Were you and Dad happy? Were you satisfied with your choices? What was your life like? If you could do it all again, what would you do differently? What were your dreams?
When she died, there was no longer a generational buffer between myself and the end. Suddenly I felt like I was standing on the edge of eternity.
Last night I had a quieter version of this same realization. We were having a lovely dinner with some of Kevin’s relatives here in Saskatoon. All seven of them ranged in age from their early twenties to thirty-ish and that’s when I had a glimpse of how an outsider might see us. I realized Kevin and I have become that generation; we are now the generation standing between the younger relatives and that dark abyss.
To be fair, there are still relatives, on both our sides, that are older than us, so we’re not exactly on the extreme edge. However, there’s not many left to between us and that jump. Along with my mother, eight of her siblings are dead. One aunt remains.
On my father’s side, his six sisters are gone, and out of all those nine strapping Friesen boys, there is only Dad and one brother left.
Kevin was telling us memories from his childhood in Saskatoon. I teased him that most of those rememberances were from almost 50 years ago. Fifty years! That’s a crazy amount of time and it’s also only minutes ago.
It’s not a tragedy. It’s simply the reality; we are on our way through this landscape.
And though I fully intend/hope to be around for a lot more decades, I have become even more aware of my mortality. Maybe this is how I know for sure that I am no longer young and so secure in my ignorance?
Instead, this knowledge makes everything richer, more precious and perfect.
After all. Isn’t it the shadow that defines the light?
When I finished reading this post, I picked up the phone and called my mother. I asked her “When was I born? What did you want to be when you grew up? And if you had one piece of advice to give your 16 year-old-self, what would it be?
Thank you for that, Colleen. My life is changing quickly, with more changes coming in the next few years when the last of my four children is lured away to the big city to learn bigger things than his high school Math teacher– or his mother — can teach him. He’ll learn to live his life. As we all do. Going through the motions, frittering away time on this task or that — thanks for the reminder that there are more years behind me than ahead of me.. so I better make sure this next chapter is filled with memories (and that I share them with my own kids before the curtain closes).
Oh Gwen. I am so glad that you called your mother. You gave her such a gift by doing that.
I’m going to guess that you will have no problem filling these next years with great memories. You’ve been doing pretty good at it so far!
I love that we have these cyber-world opportunities to dip into each other’s lives and watch them unfold.
And of course, I like it even better when we can do it in person…Keep making great memories!
Pretty profound prairie premonitions, Princess. You are forever young to me – I feel like whenever we meet we are both 9 years old. I still have both my parents (currently living it up on North America’s largest cruise ship in the Bahamas, poor near-dead cretins), but my daughters do a fine job of reminding me how passe I am fast becoming despite a high-ranking cool factor that they declare offsets some marks from the Russian judges (nyet! = not yet!). I realize much of the music I listen to is almost as bad as doowoppy 50s tunes, and that I’m actually getting scandalized/disgusted by current songs (blow my whistle baby, anyone? I bet you can figure it out).
On the good side of the ledger I’m still getting approached for advice as long as it isn’t delivered sounding like it, and find rare moments of actual friendship with my 16 year old and feel absurdly grateful, hoarding the memories like they’re my own half-feral cat kingdom.
Your post was beautifully evocative about that abyss, and how I find myself yelling ‘but I’m not ready!!!’ so often in my head I wonder if others are hearing it. There’s got to be a reason people look wild-eyed around me so often.
Well, you old fogey, consider savoring the summer-sweet memories in Saskatoon – let’s hope harvest season is many bends down the road for both of us.
Pretty profound alliterative response my nine-year old friend 🙂
I too, feel like I’m stuffing memories in my brain’s attic, like one of those grasping people on that Hoarders show. I want more, more, more…of absolutely everything. And though I know that right now is so Eckhart Tolle enough, I feel like I’ll never have enough of all that IS.
I am working on savouring the last of the summer here in Saskatchewan and hope too, that that ol’ combine isn’t coming to harvest us anytime soon. We still have too many things to laugh about!
re: “Isn’t it the shadow that defines the light?”
Colleen, Look up at the sky! The night sky, that is.
There, for all to see is what eternity looks like.
We are all made of stardust. From dust to star-dust.
“The future is so bright, I gotta wear shades”.
Namasté.
Love the eternal stardust. I agree that we are the stuff of stars. That thought alone is enough to make my mind melt 🙂