114: Keep on keeping on

Mortality is on my mind. Cheerful, I know. My grandma was 91 when she died not quite two weeks ago. When someone dies unexpectedly, or too young, or tragically, there is a sense of shock that protects us from connecting the passage to ourselves. We think: that might happen to us, but it is unlikely; please, let us be spared--it is a reasonable hope. And we vow to live our lives more fully, every day, to waste no time. But when someone dies at a ripe old age, having lived a full life, and perhaps having suffered years of decline (as my grandma did), there can be no shock, exactly. Instead, we are faced with something quite different. We are faced with the march of time, and we must look around and recognize: we are all marching. Barring the unexpected, too young, tragic death, we will grow old and we, too, will die. There is no avoiding it. There is no prayer nor magical thinking we can invent that will spare us.

I woke during the night last week, after the funeral, with a vivid image in my mind that haunted me: I saw my own lifespan as if it were displayed on a vast conveyor belt that was turning, and behind me were generations of lifespans, gone and forgotten, and ahead was the same. And I saw that my own lifespan was as finite and forgettable as any of these billions of others. There is little comfort to be found in such a vision. We are not equipped to consider life that does not include ourselves. Even when we think about history, we are inclined to make connections, to put events into contexts relevant to our own; we put ourselves into stories; we imagine how we would respond; and we are amazed, in some way, that people of the past experienced living as we do.

And so, I am of sombre mind. It does not suit me, and I would prefer greatly to be of cheerful, energetic, purposeful mind. But instead, I sit with these thoughts. I sit with a present hauntedness of what it means to be mortal. My children are growing and changing apace. My body will change, too. I cannot prevent it from getting older, and, eventually, weaker.

Is this what I'm fighting against, as I go to yoga classes and wake early to run? Am I fighting to keep the body that I have, for as long as possible? Am I fighting against my own mortality?

That sounds suspect. I hope, most emphatically, that this is not what I am doing. That it is not a fight, or a battle, but a daily reminder that I am here, now, that this is my body, now, that I am honouring this living, breathing self, now. That everything I do is an expression of gratitude for the time given to me. Because when all is said and done, all will be said and done. If I have one hope, it is that I say and do with thanks.