My family’s been staring death in the face a lot these days—on both sides. I guess it’s the year for it; after all, 2020 has pretty much been riddled with death since day 1.
Obviously, none of us are a stranger to death and we know on a subconscious level it will come for all of us one day, but when it’s so front and center in your life—like it has been lately—it’s supremely sobering. The one thought that’s been hovering in my mind since my Nana passed is how I’m not a child anymore. I’m aging. And as horrible and terrifying as that thought is, it’s nowhere near as traumatizing as the thought that comes next: Everyone else I know and love is aging, too.
It sounds so silly to say it like that, but I think on some level I’ve always been that little girl who reveled in and cherished every moment with her parents and siblings, her grandparents, her aunts and uncles, her cousins. All the Thanksgivings and Christmases and New Years we celebrated together. And in that little girl’s mind, these important people in her life would always be there, laughing, loving, living. To her, they didn’t change. They didn’t age. They didn’t pass on. To her, they were timeless.
Only they aren’t, are they?
All I can think about now is how old I am and how I’m at a point in my life where so many of the people I’ve known forever—and loved forever—are showing their age and all but hurtling toward a future in the next world. I don’t mean to sound so morbid and morose, but the holidays tend to hammer these points home in the best of years and we all know this isn’t one of those. I’ve been having such a hard time processing all this death lately—not to mention the circumstances surrounding this godawful year—and I can’t seem to shake this helpless feeling that a glorious chapter of my life is coming to an end. And that it’s set against a year spent wasting away in loneliness and isolation, far away from all the people who mean the most. What a pill to swallow.
Is there a light to be found in all this darkness? I could sit here and list all the clichés that come to mind, all the inconsequential nonsense that means nothing and helps no one. But the reality is the light can only be found after the darkness. For it is those left behind who suffer the most. I think that’s the hardest part for me right now: How do I close one of the most beloved chapters of my life and start a whole new one from scratch, knowing it too will one day be just a memory in someone else’s story?
But then I think to myself, maybe that’s the light. Sharing someone else’s story through our memories of that person. I’m struggling with my Nana’s passing because I wasn’t as close with her as I wanted to be and now that it’s too late, I wish I had taken the time to understand and appreciate all those things I took for granted. What’s ironic, though, is that in remembering her these last two weeks, all I can think about are the happy, loving moments. The sad, painful ones simply no longer exist in my mind. I think that’s how we move on. By remembering and sharing someone else’s light, not by seeking our own. Because even though our loved ones are not ageless, our memories of them and their stories most certainly are, as we pass them down from generation to generation. The stories may change but the light and the love surrounding them will endure. And that’s something worth celebrating.
I don’t know if all this is just a scared, naive girl searching for some peace around a somber ending, but it does give me hope, and hope is eternal. So, while a chapter of my life may be closing, I trust that somewhere out there I’ll soon hear the distinct click-clacking of a window.
(Yes, apparently, I couldn’t let this post end without a cliché; I hope it makes someone laugh.)