Onward! Through Life and Death
Yesterday Stuart turned 80 years old.
Wow.
I’ve written about him frequently on this blog. He is the star of our romance and of his recovery from cancer story. When he turned 70, I called him the “linebacker of my life.” In almost everything I do or write he is a quiet, consistent presence.
To celebrate turning a corner into this new decade, he has grown out his crew cut and added a goatee.
Our children worked together to create this book of favorite photos of Stuart as a Granddad. The cover shows us in Playa del Carmen where we celebrated our family Christmas this past year.
We threw a birthday party for the birthday boy, a wonderful excuse to invite family and friends to celebrate with us. It was a lovely afternoon full of conversations that renewed connections across miles, interests, and time.
In a few more weeks, my siblings and I will celebrate my mother’s 99th birthday.
We are doing some serious aging around here!
Laughter comes easily these days, but like most of our buoyant feelings, it carries a shadow side. At this advanced stage of life, we are keenly aware of Jane Kenyon’s poem:
Otherwise
I got out of bed
on two strong legs.
It might have been
otherwise. I ate
cereal, sweet
milk, ripe, flawless
peach. It might
have been otherwise.
I took the dog uphill
to the birch wood.
All morning I did
the work I love.
At noon I lay down
with my mate. It might
have been otherwise.
We ate dinner together
at a table with silver
candlesticks. It might
have been otherwise.
I slept in a bed
in a room with paintings
on the walls, and
planned another day
just like this day.
But one day, I know,
it will be otherwise.
Jane Kenyon, “Otherwise,” from Collected Poems. Copyright © 2005 by the Estate of Jane Kenyon. Reprinted with the permission of The Permissions Company, Inc., on behalf of Graywolf Press, graywolfpress.org.
In the last two weeks I have had phone calls with three friends also of “a certain age.” One lives in Florida, one in Illinois, and one in Iowa. All of these conversations eventually focused on two subjects most on our minds: age and death. At the turn into a new year, people are naturally reflective about what the past year has taught and about what they hope to learn or accomplish in the new one. For me, Stuart’s 80th birthday so soon after the New Year, has led to what meteorologists around here like to call a “wintry mix” of thinking about youth and age, life and death.
In many ways, these reflections are not new. If you search on the subject of “death” in this blog, scores of posts appear. Here is one from 2014 that announces the mission statement for my life. I wrote the statement in 2004, after the death of my friend and fellow college president Faith Gabelnick:
“to prepare for the hour of my death one good day at a time . . . and to help others do the same.”
I hope I have been faithful to that mission. I sense a need to intensify my efforts:
- practical check-ups on estate plan. Fill out the information in the aptly titled book I’m Dead. Now What?
- deepen spiritual resources: to continue to read about death and dying
- share stories with friends. I feel fortunate to have friends who want to talk about these issues.
- to walk with friends who are facing health challenges as we “walk each other home” (Ram Dass). When we lived in Virginia, I did this by singing in the Blue Ridge Threshold Choir. I miss singing with that group.
How do you feel about the subject of death? How can we face death with curiosity, hope, and maybe even joy? How can we link this kind of ultimate courage to the kind of courage Jesus (and Gandhi and Martin Luther King . . .) had to speak truth to power in life?
Congratulations to Stuart who turned 80 and to your lovely Mom who will be 99! Those are both big milestones! The year I turned 80 (two years ago), my life companion passed away, three days short of his 86th birthday. Since then my thought about end of life have been different than before—more personal. I think more about the people waiting on the other shore: a premature baby, my parents and now my life partner. I am preparing a sermon on the raising of Lazarus from the dead, a premonition of Jesus’s own death and that has brought more thoughts about the afterlife. For the most part though, I like to live in the present moment, enjoying my daughters, my grandchildren, my church family and my neighbours. Every day I thank God for the beautiful and precious gift of life.