Life is Short

I started writing this post about 6 weeks ago to reflect on the deaths of 5 friends last year. Since then it's become 6 friends- some I've known for many years, some I met this year. I don't know what to write. I want to find the beauty in the ashes but I can't. The beauty in each of their lives is easy to see- I've sat through the funerals filled with tales of love and humour and joy- but their deaths are all just tragic. I still hang on to hope and I believe that good and beautiful things may well start to grow from what is now just ashes. And they will be great stories of resilience and triumph. But they will be despite the ashes not because of them.

We often hear talk of people going to a better place and the hope of heaven. And that provides some comfort but if heaven is eternal then it can jolly well wait a little longer as far as I'm concerned. I take nothing for granted any more but I am blessed with the very real possibility that I could see my kids grow up. I can't begin to express how grateful I am for that but I know how hard it is for the partners and kids of my friends, who won't have their loved one around.  

When facing serious health issues you often become aware of relevant survival rates. I joked morbidly a few years ago with one of my friends about which of us had the best chance of survival. Cancer stole any chance we had of a 5 year celebratory drink. Liver transplantation has a 93% 1 year survival rate which is encouraging, up until you journey with some of the 7%. It's easy to see why so many transplant recipients talk about survivor guilt. Your new life is only possible because of the family deep in the midst of their grief and it feels like little more than a flip of a coin between your good recovery and yet another tragedy.

There is a song by Linkin Park called "One More Light" which grabbed my attention around the time the first of my friends passed away last year. It asks:-

Who cares if one more light goes out in the sky of a million stars?...

Why cares when someone's time runs out if a moment is all we are?...

Well I do.

I do too. I haven't turned up anything overly profound as I've thought about my various friends. All I've found is that I am really sad that they are gone and I wish they weren't and I wish there had been something I could've done to give their families more time with them.

As I said in my previous post, life is good. But I feel more acutely aware that life is also short. I hope that I make my family proud in the time I have left. I hope I learn to love better. I hope that, if I ever meet my donor's family, they see something good in me that is in some small way deserving of the great gift they have given. I hope I see clearly the things that are truly important and that I live the best life I can. Because life really is good.