'Steampunk Hourglass' courtesy of Adobe Firefly, 2024.
This year's New Years' Resolution was to do blog posts weekly. (sigh). You can see how THAT's went. It's been another case of "Life is what happens while we're making plans."
For those who have read the first two books of the “Magic Abounds” series, you’ll know that the main thing that I always put in them is the Egyptian saying on tombs all over Egypt: “Say my Name, and I will yet live again.” It’s true. While most who read my books note the love my characters have for one another, and the fact that they’re basically all one great big family – the other overriding theme of my series - surprisingly – is death.
If you’re from a western-style culture, death doesn’t get talked about until it has to be. The topic makes people uncomfortable. No one wants to think about the people they love leaving us. No one wants to think about their own exit from stage “life.” No one knows what to say to someone who grieves – particularly those who suffer incredibly traumatic losses. My sister Missy was telling me about a client she spoke to recently who, due to varying reasons, lost thirteen family members in the space of nine months, including a sibling and both parents. How do you comfort that kind of loss, when it feels like everything’s gone, and nothing remains in your own life but memories and ashes? Our society isn’t equipped to deal with it. We say things, but in truth, we scurry away for fear we’re next.
We celebrate births, and most folks celebrate the anniversary of another trip around the sun. Yet, we nearly all refuse to talk about death. It’s one of our primal fears as human beings, that harkens back to a time when the darkness without a fire, along with hunting for our dinner could spell ‘not here anymore.’ They didn’t know what to call it. Our ancient ancestors only knew ‘here today, maybe not here tomorrow.’ Where did the others go when they aren’t ‘here?’ That was one of the ways that anthropologists knew humanity was developing culture: they began having funerals and burying/honoring their dead. Then, even as now, some were more frightened of death and the dark than others.
Like taxes, death is one of the inescapable facts of life. You’re born. You live (hopefully you live a full life and do everything you’re here to do, and learn all the lessons you’re meant to, and you love everyone around you with unabashed passion and joy), and then you die. You shuffle off the mortal coil and join your ancestors…and maybe haunt the people you love because you love them. (That’s what my family does, anyway.)
When I said that life gets in the way of the plans we make, whether it’s obvious by this point or not, I’m including death in there too – after all, it IS a part of life. Right after “The Magic Around Us” was released, my mother’s sister, my Aunt Mary, took ill unexpectedly and ended up in the ICU. We thought she would die, and somehow, miraculously, she pulled through her health issues, went into rehab for two weeks, and then finally got to go home. Happy dance! The very next day after getting home? She passed away, joining my mother, grandmother, and others from the long line of tenacious women I come from.
A week after my Aunt Mary's unexpected trip to the ICU, my mother-in-law Beth suddenly took ill (they found her unconscious on the floor, that's how suddenly) and she, too, ended up in an ICU at the same time as my Aunt Mary. Different states, different hospitals, different situations that brought them there. Like my Aunt Mary, Beth nearly died in the ICU, and somehow managed to pull through. Like Aunt Mary, she made it to rehab, and was looking forward to going home. Unlike Aunt Mary – Beth never got the happy dance of seeing her home again. She was on a ventilator, and out of it half the time. That fateful day, she was awake. When she heard that they were going to put in a trach, and connect the ventilator to it – she had the strength of character and the deep love of her life the way it was to let the doctors, my husband, and my father-in-law know – emphatically NO. She wanted life on her own terms, or not at all. The doctors removed the breathing tubes and the ventilator, according to her wishes, made her comfortable so she wouldn’t be in pain, and we all sat around her bedside, playing music from Gordon Lightfoot (her favorite), talking about good memories we all had, trusting that she would continue to hear all of it. She drifted away from us, surrounded by love, joining her own ancestors.
Death is easy. It’s like a garment that you remove when you’re done with it, and then you move on. Death is only hard for those who REMAIN. It points up all those uncomfortable questions that we’ve been facing since we hid in caves and next to bonfires to beat back the darkness and fear. What happens when we die? Exactly where do we go? Does life carry on in the ‘great somewhere’ or is it like the darkness of space, surrounded by nothingness? Nobody knows, no matter what they say.
It's not just a mystery. It's THE great mystery of our all our lives.
The questions we have about death and what lies after are the prime reason any religion exists. Sure, they’re all about how we should live our lives while we’re here, but their main reason for existing in the first place has to do with ‘how we’ll spend our eternity’ after we aren’t here. At some point, it all comes down to belief, regardless of what belief system we choose. Any religion is meant to give us comfort and direction in the face of fear, and the unknown - and death is the biggest unknown any human being will ever face. We are here. We have our lives and live them: we can affect change. However, when all's said and done, whether we’re rich and famous, or poor unknowns – death is the equalizer. No matter how rich or poor, as any number of songs say, none of us gets out of here alive.
All that to say this:
Nobody knows how long we have while we’re here. Tomorrow isn’t a given. Don't forget that.
Did you wake up this morning? Take a deep breath and give thanks to whomever you owe your thanks for the privilege of drawing breath another day.
Do you have people you love? Hold them close and hug them whenever you can. Tell them you love them often. If you don't live with them, call them randomly out of the blue. You can’t tell them you love them too many times! Get together with them as often as you can manage. Don’t take time for granted. Funerals and celebrations of life shouldn’t be family reunions. All too often, they are.
Finally, Let's talk about You. Are there things you want to do? To see? To be?
Do them! Even if you think you’re not thin enough, good enough, pretty enough or have time enough. When, truly, will any of us ever be “enough?” Enough for who?? What the f**k are we waiting for? Tick-tick-tick-tick-tick.... When we get to the end of our days, and look back at the lives we’ve just exited, we’ll regret not doing some things. Working isn’t one of them, but all those things we really wanted to do or be, but didn’t? Yeah, we’ll regret those. Head off the regret now. Don’t save your living for later.
DO say the names of those who have left often. Talk about them. Tell their stories. Remember them out loud, and with other people who love and miss them! Love them, even if they’re not here. We don’t or can’t really know for sure where they are but love is always the better path to take.
'Steampunk Stopwatch' Image elements courtesy of Adobe Firefly, 2024
We have a finite amount of time here, and it’s not governed by a clock. It’s a stopwatch. We don’t know who holds it, or what prompts them to hit the button that signals our exit. The only thing we can do – the only thing we ever COULD do – is live. Live out loud; extravagantly…exuberantly, with as much love and joy as we can muster.
As for my Aunt Mary, and my mother-in-law, Beth? Tenacious, amazing women, both of them. All hail the travelers. Somewhere, they are both in the arms of those who came before and loved them, and those who are still here send them love to follow along behind. Both are surrounded by love.
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