Making Some Sense of Life… and Death
None of us are here forever, on this earth that is. Thoughts of life and death bounce around in my head on occasion, but I never talk about them, and certainly have never posted about them, afraid of the unknown in some basic way, ill prepared to process what it will mean to no longer exist.
I guess we slowly learn to accept that our time here on earth is finite. Mostly, I push thoughts of death out of my head and just be, pretending like I’m forever twenty-nine. But still, there are days when I worry about how all of this will end, and then what? Do we just go to sleep? Why am I afraid of going to sleep?
I ask Perplexity (Chat GPT) how people manage this kind of anxiety, and what I get is a list: stay busy, exercise, connect with people, sleep, eat well, spend time in nature, and journal. Nowhere does it say post to Facebook.
In our culture, we don’t talk about dying. We don’t live with it. In Mexico, there’s the day of the dead, where families return to the gravesites of their deceased family members. We pretend like death lives in the next town, far enough away so we won’t bump into it. We spend our time engrossed in our lives, pretending that time’s at a stand-still, all the while ignoring the inevitable. As Americans, we’re programmed to push our thoughts of mortality to the back burner because all around us, the message is alway about youth and fitness.
The Perplexity answer I like most for managing anxiety is a simple grounding technique called 333, where you are encouraged to redirect your thoughts to the present moment by engaging three senses — to see, hear.and touch something around you, and find the present. Simply stated — feel it, live in it.
My Mom seemed like someone quite well grounded. She believed in heaven. Talked about it often, attended church, believed in her soul’s afterlife.
“Don’t you imagine our spirit will live on?” she’d say.
She wasn’t crazy religious, but instilled in her three sons the idea that we’re put on this earth to do good. She dragged us to Sunday School, and insisted we keep at it through confirmation. My father not so much, though he too grew up with religion. Methodist. Mom an Episcopalian. I think of her often. Take comfort in the idea that she’s with her family, even if I don’t know what this looks like. I feel her soul alive around me.
“Don’t borrow worry,” someone once said to me and Mary when we were anxiously fighting to get the town of Brookline to give our children more educational services. It’s good advice, if you can heed it. Again, most of the time I revel in the positive, thinking of all the opportunities still ahead of me. Coincidentally, I’m reading the book Midnight Library, whose construct is this. “Between life and death there’s a library… filled with books… every book book a chance to try another life.” I’m just starting the book, so no spoilers please, but I like this premise, because everyday presents us with this option, to choose a different path, a difference way of thinking, if not a different job or family situation.
I try to live in this place — the place of possibility, of what next. I try to find the joy and smile as much as I can. This something my mom taught us, to smile even when we might not think or want to. She suffered tremendous loss in her lifetime, including debilitating depression. And yet, I remember her for her smile, for her can-do attitude. She never let on about her depression, possibly afraid it would burden her children.
There are times when I worry about dying. Not too often, and maybe writing about it will help me make sense of what’s ahead. Maybe writing about mortality will make it less scary. Today is today — I can see, here and feel it. Today is a chance to be in this world. A chance to make a difference. A chance to make sense of it all, if only for an instant before it’s time to move on. For this day, I am eternally grateful.
