The Reaper Cometh

There’s a clock on each of us. It ticks inexorably forward, counting down what little time we have left. We willfully ignore it, wanting to make the best, I suppose, of the time we do have. But still it comes. It made a very personal visit to me last week. It took four people. Without warning, without care, without sympathy. Nothing. It just continues on counting, always counting.

We are left to wonder why, to try to make sense of it when there is no sense to be made. It simply happens, and we are left to wonder and cope.

Death takes many forms. It has an inexhaustible number of ways to gain its objective. While my mother’s illness appears to be moving her rather quickly downhill to her own death, the four from last week met their fate suddenly and unexpectedly. How do we answer the anquish, the inability to imagine, yet with the horrible ability to visualize ourselves in their place when the end came?

I only know we are still here. We will carry on, continue to get up each morning and face the day. We will remember, some days more painfully than others, the loss, the empty hole their absence creates in our lives. It will never be the same. I hope each of them rests in peace, and that God is caring for their souls.

We have been better knowing each of them. They made us laugh and engage. They tested our patience and helped us understand things we did not see. They offered perspective to us in a way only they could.

For my mother, I see her wanting to leave now. She has led a long and wonderful life. Like all of us have or will, she suffered tragedy and did her best to move on and seek wonderful new experiences. By doing that, she found them or they found her. She was always trying to be philosophical and positive, understanding there is nothing that can be changed. We must simply will ourselves to keep moving to better places and higher ground. That is done now. Her heart is no longer physically up to the task and she knows it. She doesn’t want to fight it because she knows there is no winning. One way or the other, the Reaper will find a way. She’s ready to see God, to perhaps reunite with departed loved ones.

I will miss her mightily. She has been such a steadfast soldier to what is good, what is right, what is graceful, what is kind; She set the example of how we should view the world as an adventure and ourselves as servants to others, and how self-fulfilling that can be. She never looked at herself as a victim – never said it, never asked why. Was she frustrated with her condition, of course. Recognition is one thing, but the frustration of seeing capabilities leave you, of seeing the joys those capabilities have brought disappear is very hard. No more music or playing the piano, no more reading, no more crossword puzzles. In the end though, she did that with as much grace and as little ego as I can imagine possible.

Death reminds those of us still here how temporary we are, how little time there really is; how we should make the best and give the very best of what we have. Doing so rewards us and makes the world better. That should be enough. Don’t waste the chances you are given. Treasure them, use them, grow with them and with those around you. It can be such a great adventure.