Firecracker Knees

I’ve reached the age when the people in my life are dying with frightening frequency. This is not unexpected, of course, for one lucky enough to have achieved old fart-hood. And I’m grateful I’ve made it this far, and am still going – I won’t say still going strong, which sounds ageist and delusional – but at least still going. Though it is just a little unnerving that now, sometimes, when I stand up, it sounds like firecrackers are going off in my knees. But the knees are still mine, and they still bend. (Counting my blessings here; naming them one by one.)

Not that the people in my life haven’t been dying all along: Grandparents, before I even knew them; parents, now decades ago; aunts and uncles and brothers; neighbors, teachers, preachers – but they were all so much older. Not the ones right around me, my own age – even younger – who, but for the grace of …

Yes, I know that death is the final stage of life, no matter the age when it arrives, and so it’s a natural thing, to be experienced, on the way to what comes next. I try to embrace that knowledge. I’m more successful in doing so in the light of day than in the lonely dark of night. Though whether in the light or the dark (especially in the dark), it’s hard not to hope I won’t somehow be the exception – the one for whom it will be if, not when.

But for more and more of my people, when is arriving. And however much a part of the natural way of life death is – and thus, in some way, however beautiful – I miss them. Also a natural part of life, of having people in your life. Don’t think I’m trying to come off selfless and saintly here. It’s purely selfish, as most human motives are (though not maliciously so, I hope). I’m finding that the light of day can be just as lonely, without them, as those dark nights, and that fond memories only go so far in mitigating that.

These thoughts, following close on the most recent departure, are a floundering effort to make the frightening and the lonely less so. “What a blessing they went quickly.” “They wouldn’t have felt any pain at the end.” “They’ll live on in our memories and hearts forever.” At least for the short “forever” that our hearts and memories have left.

“Life goes on.” Indeed it does, though not for them, nor for me either, as it was. I’m sad for their leaving, and sad for the lonely missing I’ll have now, even though shared with those who are still here, and missing them too. We can hand each other tissues, and share recollections, good and bad, and eventually laugh at remembered jokes and foibles.  We can remind ourselves that we’re all in this together, and also all in it alone, and that what will be will be – in the long run, that is. Does there come a time (I think there must) when we give up all hope, all expectation, of understanding, and just accept?  Human nature being the way it is, maybe not. And maybe it wouldn’t make us feel any less lonely, any less pained, if we did.

“Do not go gentle into that good night?” Written by a young man, fighting his own demons, I suppose. I disagree. The best going I can think of would be a gentle one. Fight for life till the last moment that there’s anything to life beyond the fighting, sure. But that moment comes, and what a blessing then to “just slip away.”

Slip away where, being unknowable, doesn’t matter then. That’s my belief, anyway; if yours is different, so be it. But surely, no matter our differences of belief, we can agree on that gentle going.  And the sharing of the tissues and the reminiscences. Because they’ve gone, and we’re missing them, day or night, together or alone.  And we’re still here, for a while longer, anyway, going toward our own going, without them.

Do you need a tissue? I have one here.