Reflections on time and loss

 

Loss and grief come untethered to a timeline of our choosing. We lose people we love and care for without warning and even when we know the final bell will toll, we remain wholly unprepared for the absence of their presence in our world. Whether it be someone you see or talk to on a daily basis or a somewhat less tangible connection, the fact that person exists on this planet always means there is a chance to connect with them again at some unknown point in the future. That tomorrow of tomorrows we always promise and when that no longer exists, you feel a tug on your own mortality and see the fragile peace you have made with existence for however many years you have been here.
  We walk through so many days in a sort of lackadaisical shrug toward the routines that bind us. Work, home, school, family, friends and a myriad of variations on those themes propel us forward as the clock ticks, winding down days left even as we seek to speed up the boring, mundane ones to get to the special days off and other celebrations we use to spice up a life often left searching for more meaning. But in seeking a sped up life, we leave behind days that contained small moments of joy and love that we should seek to hold onto because all too soon, they are gone and we wonder where the time went.
  Truth be told, we are all guilty of wanting to get through a day, a week or some longer time frame all through our lives. To get past a particularly troubling time like right now during this pandemic times, we seek the end and a release from what we deem a "new normal" that is anything but. We want to get through the work week to the weekend, through the winter to the spring, from the pain to some relief. But how many days do we leave behind that we would love to have one more just like it when the final bill comes due? How many silly and seemingly innocuous times spent quietly enjoying a day that we then felt we had wasted because we weren't productive would we like to have back at the end of our days?  Every day isn't special, but every single day we get is one less we have left to be here and since we have no knowledge of when that tally runs out, maybe it is time to slow down, even a little, and make it last.
  Embrace your everyday and leave a legacy of love for those who will mourn you. Give them a smile through the tears and a spark of laughter when they speak of you with wistful remembrance. The only thing that lasts is how you treat people, how you made them feel and that is the thing we hold most dear when we miss the ones we love who have left us all too soon for our liking.


Polk