With life running out.
My own. And so many others. Bob, Tony Incashola, Ian Tyson, Chuck Johnson, Kay Flinn, Connie Waterman. Before that Ivan and Kay Rosengren and Dick Ensminger and Gene over in Harlowton and Jean and Clarence. Before that Dave. My folks. George and Dorothy. Big Marcella. Harry Pfanz. Lee Lengel. Tom Govan, Gary, Barb, the entire panoply of aunts and uncles and the honorary McPherson ones.
The relentless march of loss – of watching the people who defined my life, steadied it, brought joy to it, leave. Not just watching. Feeling. Emptiness. Disbelief. Rebellion.
Until at last, I look at myself—in the context of those departed and those frail ones further along on their trips.
Which means coming to terms with my own knees and legs – the annoying, wearying, limiting debilities that leave me moving slowly and carefully.
Coming to terms with all that I won’t do again. The places that I won’t go. The exhilaration of accomplishments and invested skill unlikely to be ahead.
Coming to terms with an increasingly dated knowledge of historic preservation and Montana. Two generations behind already.
Coming to terms with being an antique. A relic from a time whose customs and belongings are quaint, old-fashioned.
I write—I suspect—as a cry to the universe to say: NOT ME. HOW HAS IT COME TO THIS FOR MEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!
Believing, as did my dad though for different reasons, that I can outwit this stage of life.
Surely if I find a goal, a special project, the right words, I’ll escape. For now at least.
Or, if all women’s magazine and AARP’s articles are to be believed, bravely facing forward, adopting the right diet and wardrobe and chair exercises. Just plain denying reality—for as long as that trick works.
But I live grieving. The losses are real. I am not fantasizing what will not return and will not happen.
The fact of the matter—the plain reality—is I am returning to the ether, the universe, back to energy.
What remains is living the last chapter. Maybe engaged in the last stories with energy and enthusiasm. Or, if it comes to that, living the frightening, ugly, drooling, incontinent, wheelchair goodbye.
But living. Until I’m not.
Always always doing what I can. Relishing what I can in words and friendships and skies and art and warmth and cats and hugs and memories. And gratitude.
To waste no hours feeling put upon or martyred or singled out. To spare the world false bravado. To grieve but not wallow.
To know, instead, empathy and curiosity and—as every self-help book and mantra advises: acceptance. ©
