A relative of mine died recently.
Aside from the sadness and sense of loss, death puts a mirror of our own mortality to our faces. As we age, learning to deal with the grim reaper becomes a bigger and bigger issue.
I have to admit, I don’t get – nor like – this “death thing,” so I seek denial that it could be me next.
I’m convinced he began that morning as he did so many others, yet that day ended so horribly different. Surely, there must have been a warning; a sign, giving him room to avoid the outcome. I look for understanding, a meaning, solace. I’m embarrassed to say I even blame him for not avoiding it; maybe he set himself up for it. Understand, I am trying to do something – anything – to avoid the reality that I, Scott Marcus, 62 years on planet Earth, writer, speaker, friend of many, father of two, lover of one, just might not have all the tomorrows I need either. We convince ourselves that there is always another sunrise over the horizon. Yet, as my grandmother said so many times, “Tomorrow never comes.”
When fear goes unchallenged, it becomes cement, weighing heavily on our souls; we hunch down our shoulders and grovel in whisper-like tones to the Universe. As Oliver Twist said, holding his now empty bowl of gruel, with a voice tiny and meek, “Please sir, more…” We hold out frail trembling hands and beg for more time, unsure we are deserving but wanting and needing it so desperately. I’ll be good. Please don’t take it away from me.
During however many revolutions around the Sun we have, we are essentially faced with one main choice: embrace love or cower in fright.
After all, we each begin and end this journey in the same fashion; traveling similar paths; ups, downs, lots of middles. How we view ourselves and that passage is what really makes the difference.
