Humans are clingy. We can spend the entire day with someone and still miss them at the end of the day. We long for our childhoods, memories of early Saturday mornings with a bowl of cereal in front of the television lulling us into a nostalgic stupor. We hang on to the smallest of hopes in our darkest times, praying to anything we can put our belief in or just hoping the universe goes our way. We force ourselves to remember things that are long gone. We never truly let go of those who have left us.
Of course, the world goes on whether we are ready for it to proceed or not. Time ticks at one second per second, days pass once every 24 hours. In his book, "The Time Keeper," Mitch Albom states that "Man alone chimes the hour. And, because of this, man alone suffers a paralyzing fear that no other creature endures." While in his book this fear is that of "time running out," another tragic side effect of time keeping is becoming stuck in the past.
We've all been there. A nasty break up, a failed exam. An awkward date or a lost game. When hardships come to people, they stick with us. For better or worse, we are able to relive these cringe-inducing moments with near perfect clarity, exaggerating the worst parts of the memory while muting the rest. Quick, think of that really embarassing moment you had with your teacher from elementary school. A few of you are currently shifting uncomfortably in your seats. Sorry.
Eventually, however, we move on. That break up becomes a story to tell your friends, the failed exam turns into motivation to study harder. That awkward date taught you what not to do with your current partner, that lost game is permanently lost to history. Sensitive as we are, people are a hardy bunch. However, there are those events that are tragic enough to affect us on a fundamental level. Betrayal from a close and trusted person. Losing a job during hard times. A body-breaking accident. Death of a loved one.
These are just a few of the countless scenarios that can happen to someone, completely changing their worldview fundamentally. These people may have lost everything that they have spent their life for, such as a surgeon breaking his hands or a CEO watching his company collapse beneath him. People curse names and scorn the world, screaming through gritted teeth and teary eyes, "Why me?!" Fists slam tables, alcohol gets poured down throats, and therapies get scheduled. Traumatic as events may be, peope are a hardy bunch. Very slowly, but surely, we learn to cope with our losses. That job is just one of many we're good at. The CEO can now invest his time in his family. The surgeon now dons a red cape and stars in his own movie about saving the world from mystical threats.
We learn to accept death, and that our loved one is no longer with us.
This last bit is one of the hardest events one can go through. Life is fragile, requiring years of nurturing before it can ponderously waddle into the world on its own legs, and still it will bump into every wall on its way to the finish line. Once it's lost, there's no coming back. There is no respawn and as much as we beg and scream and cry to the omnipotence that governs life and death, we can't always bring them back.
Humans are clingy. For a time, we refuse to accept that our cousin, sister, friend, etc. has died. We think that they'll come back, magically rising from the grave with their personalities intact. Acceptance often comes during the funeral, with the lowering of the casket being their final, physical, presence. Even after acceptance, we see our deceased everywhere. We see the pictures taken together, clothes you think they would look good in. We listen to their favorite songs, we spend many mornings waking up thinking that you'll see them at work, in class, at the gym, but then we remember that we won't. We whip out our phones at the speed of light as soon as we get a notification, praying that it might be them. While we may accept their passing, we never truly let them go.
I watched a movie one night in which the dead stuck in purgatory can only move on not when they've let go of unfinished business, but when the living let go of them. Once this happened, both the living and the dead had achieved peace.
Perhaps this is what we need to do as the living. Let our deceased go. Always remember them for who they are and what they meant to you, but also let them go. Forgive them for any wrongs they may have done, but also forgive yourself. Forgive yourself for feeling the way you did, and continue on with life. Take your next clumsy step and get back into the world.
Let go.
Live life.
