20 April 2008

vitae brevis

Have you ever lost someone close to you? Thankfully, I can't say that I have. Unfortunately, I know people who have, and that sucks...a lot.

During my 23 years on Earth, I've had to say goodbye to several family members. This; however, isn't really what I'm talking about. No, what I'm talking about is a different kind of "someone." I mean friends, friends of the close sort. These are the people that you joke around with, grow up with, know inside and out...you know who I'm talking about.

Maybe I've never lost someone like that because I've never had someone like that to loose. As I've said before, I grew up in the military, moving around a lot. Because of that I haven't had those lifelong friends - the people you meet when you're 6 months old, go to school with, graduate from high school and/or college with, and keep in touch with forever. No, most of my friendships have been fleeting. This, however, isn't my point (yes, I have one, read on).

What do you say to someone when they've lost a close friend? Further, what do you say when you have no similar experience from which to draw upon to establish a connection of sorts with the person in mourning? I want to tell them that things will be okay, and that with time they will begin to heal and feel better; slowly moving on with their lives. I want to say that while it sucks that they just lost their friend, they must go on; take away the good times and remember them forever. But can I really say that? At the very least, can I say that without seeming naive or simply rude?

I like to think of myself as a very practical person - perhaps too practical a person. I look at situations and attempt to figure out how we can best benefit from it. That being the case, you wouldn't be far off thinking that grief and sadness are not feelings that I place high importance on or spend a lot of time with. As I'm sure you can imagine, this makes situations in which others are grieving that much more difficult for me. Now I have a person, presumably someone close to me, who is having a hard time because they lost something that I've never had and are expressing feelings that I don't. So how do I empathize while not feeling like a fake and not coming across as an idiot?

Some say that we shouldn't mourn the dead. No, instead we should celebrate the life that was. Well, if that's what we were meant to do, then why do we feel grief when someone dies? If we were supposed to celebrate life shouldn't we be, to some extent, happy? Clearly this isn't the case, though I think I'd prefer it to be. Grief, sadness the the like are not things that we benefit from. Quite the opposite in fact. When we grieve we have to take time to grieve; time that we could otherwise use to do something else. However, were we to celebrate a life that should mean that we're happy, or at least not sad, right? Happy people are productive people, and that, friends, is my language.

Unfortunately, this isn't a way to address death. No, trying to make someone think they should be happy because their friend is no longer with them just seems weird to me - it simply won't do. Well, what then? I suppose that, to a large extent, we don't really need to know what do to. Maybe we should just be there for the person grieving. Everyone is different, right? That being the case, I suppose to makes sense that everyone will need something different. Even one person will need different things at different times. Unfortunately, it seems to me that most of the things that people will need are unpredictable, so we just need to be flexible and work with them. Eventually they will get better and move on; it just takes different people different amounts of time.

My point (I'm not even sure that I remember it anymore, assuming that I had one) is that the world doesn't work the way that we'd always like it to. No...for practical people like myself there are things like grief and sadness to think about. For normal people there is death to deal with. Neither are things that we want to happen, but they are things that we have to deal with anyway. Ideally, dulcius ex asperis - through the difficulty will come sweetness. In other words, the hard times that we must go through will hopefully lead to better times in the not-so-distant future.

Vitae brevis. Life is short. Embrace those whom you love and keep them close. Be there for those who are in mourning. Live your life to the fullest - don't be the person who lies on their death bed and regrets not doing something. Live, love, and appreciate. Make the most of your life and include as many people as possible so that, after you are no longer here, those you leave behind have nothing but good memories with which to remember you.

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