Life and Loss

I don’t do very well with death. I understand it is going to happen to all of us and I have had the uncanny feeling since I was a small child that I had very limited time and need to stay busy and on top of things in order to use my precious time wisely. I have told you before that the one thing I know for sure is, we can always make more money but not more time. Therefore, I budget my time much more carefully than my money.

Being the age I am, I have of course seen many friends and people I know pass away. My first time seeing death was when my grandfather died. I was in fourth grade and my parents would not let me go to his funeral. They were afraid it would scar me. When four of my friends died in a car crash when I was in 11th grade my parents would not let me go to their memorial. I regret that even more than missing my grandfather’s funeral. I was in my 30’s before I went to my first funeral and by that time I was terrified to go. My parents had scared me and scarred me much more than just going to the funerals would have. My husband was raised the opposite of me in this instance, as in many others. He went to lots of funerals growing up and he had a healthy appreciation for life and honoring and celebrating the dead. He got me through my first funeral and many since. I have even grown enough to have gone to some alone and have even run the sound at some lately, something I know is a service to the family and I am proud to be able to do.

All of this said, I am still shocked and fall apart when someone unexpectedly dies. Having been UMW president put me with a lot of older women at my church. Many passed away during my tenure and I went to each and every funeral. I expected some of the deaths because of age or prolonged illness, some hit me out of the blue. But each time I was sad to lose these women.

I have also lost friends around my age and seen my son lose friends his age. That really devastates me. With people of any age though, I am never really prepared.

I have had a lot of issues at school lately and I have gotten too wrapped up in them. I have lost focus of what really matters. I went to school to learn and maybe become better at something I thought God wanted me to do. I wanted to feel confident enough to perform in a way that might make a difference to someone, someday. Instead I have gotten bogged down in the politics of the department, who is feuding with whom, and I have let people dissuade me from my purpose. It is my fault, I let my insecurities about this one facet of my life steer me in a wrong direction. I have let other people deter me from my goal. I have felt lately like I made a mistake going back to school at all. This morning as I reflected on life and loss, my initial thought was that I was wasting my time. I had so much going on when I dropped it all to go back to school. I could be helping people with the UMW’s mission work or becoming a better person by taking a Bible study. I could be working at the high school more and helping my husband with his work. Instead I am always “busy”, mostly driving the long distance between my house and school. I have a finite amount of time and I am spending it on the road to go somewhere I feel unwanted most of the time lately. But then I remembered some of the things the woman we lost last night had said to me.

When I was UMW president and people got riled up about some of the changes I made, she would tell me if I didn’t make some people mad, I wasn’t really doing anything! She told me to just get on with the job at hand, I could not control what others thought or did. She told me if I was going to take a stand then someone would disagree with me, it was human nature. And that that was as it should be. She was very liberal, especially for an older lady, and fought injustice as hard as anyone I know. She made no apologies for it. And most everyone liked or at least respected her for it. She was a strong leader. She was a good example for us all. I had disagreements with her a couple of times, but it never affected the admiration I had for her and it never seemed to sway her from supporting me. She was always in my corner, even when some of her friends were not. I think she probably understood as well as anyone why I gave up so many obligations to go off to college. And I felt like she still loved me and appreciated what I was doing.

This woman will be truly missed. I will try to remember what she taught me. After all, isn’t that our legacy? To have taught someone something worthwhile that can be passed down for generations to come? So as always, I am sad and don’t really understand why these things happen the way they do. I will give up trying to figure it out, accept it and try to do better in my own life. And I will try to stay focused and let the petty things fall to the wayside. Rest in Peace.