You know what’s crazy? Getting to be an age where death is starting to enter into the equation.
When you are a kid, maybe your grandparents die and some random kid, some random way throughout your schooling, might pass away. But, rarely does anyone super close to you. As a kid you are indestructible, immortal, a daredevil who seeks danger and laughs in the face of death. The older you get, maybe it’s because of a breakdown in our bodies that we feel more and more every day, the more you must deal with the inevitable. Someone you know will die.
Personally, I have been very lucky so far. My parents are young. I haven’t had to make any major decisions about their health. I haven’t watched them deteriorate before my eyes. Just a few grey hairs, really…the same ones I have covered up every 3 months. In fact, my family is just starting to grow. With nephews and family planning taking place, the family is expanding rather than dwindling.
But, when I was a teenager, my Mother’s parents died. I wasn’t very good at helping out. I was a teenager…I was involved in my own life with its “huge, important” problems. I barely even remember my Mother grieving. But, I know she did. I know it was really hard for her to lose them in a short span of time, to deal with family dysfunction in the midst of it all and to make hard, hard decisions about someone else’s life. I wasn’t there for her at all. As an adult, I’m ashamed I wasn’t present enough to think about someone else and how much they were hurting. I’m embarrassed that I was a child.
Still, it’s hard to know how to comfort the living when someone does pass on. What do you say, that can even add the slightest bit of comfort to them? How do you go about your own life, when someone you love is experiencing so much pain? If I could stroke away the hurt I would. If I could embrace away the pain, I would hold on for as long as it took. But, the truth is…death is a part of life. Everyone experiences loss. No one more than others. Everyone will lose their parents, their best friend, their siblings, their loved ones. No one is immune. No one is spared.
So, it is with a heavy heart that I mourn Earl Moshinsky. I grieve with his loved ones. For as an adult, I understand the pain, for I know it is only a second away from being mine.
