What Makes Life Worth Living
When I was 15 years old, I went to my first wake, or at least the first one I can recall. My great aunt had passed away. The strongest memory I have of my aunt is when I visited her at a retirement village in Florida, and she laughed about how, at her age, she no longer had to worry about shaving her legs as my sister and I did.
My last memory consists of looking at her lying permanently at rest in an open casket. In those brief couple of minutes, it struck me—physically she was there, but something significant felt missing. She lacked spirit and energy and not in the same way as someone sleeping or pretending to rest. With her life force strikingly absent, it was then that the idea of a soul felt very real to me.
My encounters with death from that point forward fell to the peripheral, never a loved one in my home or immediate circle that felt quite as real. Although I had a friend in high school living with cancer, she talked little about it to me, except for a passing mention, as if noting what she had for dinner last night. Like most teenagers, our interactions, instead, mainly centered around boys and friends and convening at the local bowling alley. The only other conversation about her illness I remember occurred when my mom and I bumped into her and her mom at Contempo Casuals in the mall. In between the racks of spaghetti strap babydoll dresses so popular at the time, our moms quietly caught up, separate from our chatter. After they left, my mom mentioned my friend’s illness with sadness in her voice. It still didn’t completely register.
The notion that she could die didn’t occur to me or seem possible. We were teenagers and she was a platinum-blonde lioness full of life. She laughed in a full-bodied sort of way and told colorful jokes at the cafeteria lunch table while I ate my peanut butter sandwich. Her salty language poured over into the hallways as I watched her affectionately greet a mutual shy friend with “Hey, Bitch,” as they passed each other in between classes—a yin to the other’s yang.
She disappeared for a while at some point, and I didn’t hear much. In a time before social media and cell phones, it was harder to connect, and eventually, I left for college. Then she was gone. She died exactly one week before I got married. We were 21. I didn’t really know or understand her illness, but I wish I had seen her and been a better friend to her in those years.
Now I think about death often—weekly, maybe even daily to some extent. I’m interested in what everyone has to say about dying from the bible to Matthew McConaughey to the stoics to physicians (see my book review on The Four Things That Matter Most). I move forward wanting to squeeze the most I can out of life and desire authentic connections with others.
I’m not sure if this is due to my Aunt’s funeral, my short friendship in school, or even listening to my parents about the losses they experienced early in life. Perhaps it’s also the years I worked at an organization focused on lung disease where many of our volunteers and friends passed on. Or, maybe simply it’s my natural temperament and faith-leaning. Why do we think and do the things we do? Maybe one reason. Probably many.
My awareness of the fragility of life became even more acute when my daughter was born. Her birth prompted the courage to eventually leave situations that took me off-course to focus more fully on my purpose. Our time is short and precarious, but maybe that’s what makes life worth living.
How has the loss of a loved one shaped you? If you could pursue one action today to step forward in living life more fully, what would you do?
For related resources, see prayer In Courage and a book review on Dr. Ira Byock’s The Four Things That Matter Most.