I am very fortunate that death hasn’t impinged too harshly on my life so far. I’m grateful.
That said, there have been 3 deaths on my peripheral this month, and its made me think about a lot of things.
Not very long ago, a man decided that instead of going to court for sentencing, he’d rather publicly jump to his death off the top of a down town building. I wasn’t there, but I easily could have been, its an intersection with several businesses I frequent. That made me ask a lot of questions. Didn’t this man have a family who would miss him? Or maybe stand by him while he went to jail? Why did he get all the way to the court building and run? I couldn’t really see myself in his place, so I guess I’ll never understand his choices, but it made me think. And feel badly for those people who happened to be on hand to witness it. That must have been really traumatic.
And then there was my friend who posted that after 19 years, his senior cat was to sick to struggle any more, so was helped to pass on. Its sad to lose a pet. I’ve been there and done that. What affected me here, aside from my grief for my friend, is the fact that I remembered that cat from the end of our college days. He was a good cat. His passing means that my beloved Tesh is the senior cat in my circle now, and that is pretty upsetting. She’s happy and pretty spry for her age and quite healthy, but at 18, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything.
Just this weekend someone I didn’t know well but was quite close to many people who are very important to me dropped dead completely unexpectedly. She was having some chest pains and went to check herself into a hospital in the morning. I’ve heard that by then she was in the 7th hour of her heart attack and there was nothing they could do to help. She’d fallen the day before, so assumed that the arm pains she’d been having were caused by that. She would have been 50 in August, which is precisely the age of my husband.
These 3 incidents have inspired much thinking, and I’ve come to 2 conclusions.
1. I don’t have any real problems. Sure, there some concerns, some things I’d rather were different, but in the grand scheme of things, nothing that is an actual serious problem. Its very easy to get caught up in challenges and see them as problems. For a while, I know I’ll have them in their proper perspective.
2. Make the best of everything you have and enjoy it to the fullest. Make choices every day to do your best to enjoy what comes along, appreciate what you have, and love the people you’re with. Something I’ve tried to do anyway, but this was quite a reinforcing lesson.
