Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Sandcastles

Today marks the 2nd anniversary of Aimee's suicide.

Two years needs some perspective. For me, two years represents about 5% of my life.

For Elliot, age 2 years 3 1/2 months, it is the majority of his life.

For Max, almost 8 years, it is nearly 25% of his life.

Even for Owen, 10 1/2, those 2 years mark around 18% of his life.

I talk to the boys about Aimee from time to time, usually when they approach the subject. I am honest and direct when I do. Owen and I have had some challenging discussions about how she died and the nature of her illness. I know a day will come when Elliot needs to understand things I will not be able to make understandable. For now, he is a sometimes blissful, sometimes cranky toddler with personality and lust for life (i.e., desire to run up and down the sidewalk at full toddler speed).

I remember April 2, 2012 well. It was a Monday. Two sheriff's deputies banged on the door and woke me. The day swam quickly with trips to the junkyard, the funeral home, and the church to plan the funeral... I remember feeling like my dreams were over. My life was irrevocably changed.

True. True.

But here's what I know now. dreams are never meant to survive untouched. Dreams evolve. Dreams undergo constant and steady remodeling. Life's meaning isn't gifted to us when young, so we fight, childlike, against the tide which would wash away our dreams. Life's meaning is something forged through work, heartache, and a lifetime of living.

A number of fans have been upset about the finale of How I Met Your Mother. I am not one of them. Ted Mosby--while a fictional character--has made meaning of his life through the telling of his story. His romantic ideals have survived and evolved. In the end, he knows meaning comes in the making of it--just as he loved the mother so well while she was alive. It wasn't that they were "fated" to be together or "the one," but they made it work. The blue French horn in the end is not the same (metaphorically) he lifts at the beginning of the series; it is Ted's meaning, an all-in romantic ideal which he will chase all his life, even as life forces that ideal to take different shapes. And that, folks, is a beautiful note on which to end if an end must happen. It's the kind of end which doesn't really end.

Life, unfortunately must end--but in that inevitability, we find its greatest gift:

Life is for living now, loving now, forging meaning, now.




2 comments:

Anonymous said...

thanks for the spoilers!

Anonymous said...

I don't have a lot of words to share, but I wanted to say thank you for this post.