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 There is something inherently sad about resuming daily life after a loved one has passed away. It's almost like their death was meaningless. I mean, how can we just go on, as though nothing happened? As though our lives weren't irrevocably altered?
For me, there's a hole in my life that wasn't there before. In some ways, I could say that my innocence has been shattered. A parent--my mother--is gone. Killed by cancer. And yet, I'm still here. And someday, I'll be gone and my children will remain after me. And so it goes, on and on. A mere two generations from now, my entire existence will be forgotten. My name will never been mentioned. No one will know who I was. It will be, for all intents and purposes, as though I never existed at all.
When I was in Boston a couple weekends ago, we visited the Freedom Trail, which included three separate graveyards. Two had very famous people in them--signers of the Declaration of Independence. But around them were names that I'd never heard or read about. Because the markers were engraved on limestone, many were effaced. Mere markers without a name or date. Not only were they forgotten, but all evidence of their lives wiped away by weather and time.
I realize this is somewhat morose and depressing, but what true purpose do our crypts and elaborate graves truly have, if we're still forgotten within two generations? Our corpses take up space and remind all of us that life is finite. Is that a good enough reason? Other cultures cremate their dead, or feed the dead to vultures or bury bodies at sea. They recognize that the body without the soul has no further purpose. I wish we could grasp onto that concept. Then maybe we would celebrate the life that was lived without the gruesome process of looking at embalmed bodies as though our loved one is there. S/he is not there. Not anymore. S/he has been released. Set free.
If our loved one has been set free, then so are we. We're free to resume our daily lives knowing that our fate will eventually be the same.
So... I've said all this to say that I've resumed my life, including my word count goal of 750 words per day or 5,250 words per week. Today, Sunday, I wrote 1,438 words with the specific intention of not needing to write next Saturday (when family concerns eat up my entire day). Such a silly thing, isn't it? Especially in light of the topic. But that's what it means for me to "resume" my life. Word counts.
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