Blink And You Miss It

Life, that is. It's there, and then it isn't. Alive, then dead. And those of us left behind just plod on, bewildered and trying to make sense of it. You know something? When my Dad passed back in 2007 it took the form of what you might describe as a managed descent. He had his terminal diagnosis, and then there was a period of five months where we all got a chance to journey with him. My sister didn't get to experience that. No, the universe decided that in the space of seven days it was going to rip her 36 year marriage out of her hands and leave her a widow. And I mean literally rip, like a tornado ripping a house from its foundations and hurling it thousands of feet into the air. What's the saying? Oh yeah, "We're not in Kansas anymore". How is a fragile human being meant to even begin to process that? How can you prepare for days like these? You can't, of course. You just get hurled along with the rest of the fucking house, and you land someplace else, in a land you barely recognise. Watching this particular tornado from close range has sadly, once again reminded me that as humans we are far more helpless than we care to admit. So much we cannot control. And frankly this is what I have wrestled with too much this year. I tend to see any situation as something that admits of a solution, only some things you can't fix. Some knots you can't unpick. You just have to stand and watch as people you love experience the unthinkable, quietly knowing that what you see them living through is the monster you fear yourself. In this life, if we are fortunate, we get to share some time with people we love and cherish and would likely choose to spend eternity with. Love is a risky business, and time a thief that will, eventually, consume all. There are people in my life that have made me wiser, calmer, more steadfast. One day I will smile at these people for the last time. We'll share a final laugh, eat a final pub lunch, go on a final walk, partake of a last embrace. We probably won't know it at the time, but we can be assured this comes to us all. We're all a part of the great transaction more commonly referred to as consciousness. We live, feel, observe, comprehend, and then the hour comes when we do not. Perhaps this all sounds depressing to you, and perhaps it actually is. But would you rather have not experienced the joys of being alive, with all that this entails? This voyage is in every sense the adventure of a lifetime. Yours, mine. Some of it we will share. As I type this I am once again trying to process yet another massive seismic shift in the fabric of my reality, and it won't be the last time. I have no great words of wisdom as to how you spend your time on Earth, but for me I think I owe it to those departed to be grateful of what I still have. In closing, when I gave my Father's eulogy 15 years ago I closed by imploring those present to "Live as if it means something". It was simultaneously a cry from the heart and a call to arms. I meant it in 2007, and by God I mean it now. . .