Skip to main content

Looking backward, living forward

Life can only be understood backward but it must be lived forward. 
~Soren Kierkegaard 

There have been about a million thoughts rumbling in my brain lately but I have been very slack about getting them on paper (or, at least, the blog). Life has just been busy -- in a good way -- and by the time I get around to blogging, I find myself tired. Or distracted.  


The balloon launch...
Finally, I find the time to collect my thoughts.  There have been many thoughts of Charlotte over the past week. Last Saturday, when we reflected on her passing with close friends, I felt supported and comforted. The day was just what I needed it to be. The weather was a balmy 60-some degrees. It was breezy and (most of) the balloons found their way into the sky as we launched them in our cul de sac.  I am grateful to everyone who left who shared the day, sent us notes, and told us how they remembered Charlotte in their own way.  

Then, Roger and I decided to watch The Curious Case of Benjamin Button again. It was definitely a cathartic exercise.  That movie sticks with me in the strangest way. I first saw it in the movie theater in January 2009. Charlotte and Roger were in Florida for the Disney marathon so I took the opportunity to see a movie with Charlotte's godmother, Auntie 'Retta.  Even then, I was awed by the visual power and deep message of the movie. 

Barely two weeks later, our lives were filled with cancer. Then I watched as our daughter was forced to battle a disease that eventually consumed her tiny body. She left us. 

I now see that movie with a new pair of eyes.  

One of the things I really love about the movie are the deep thoughts that Benjamin shares as he tells his story.  Here are some of my favorites:

"We're meant to lose the people we love. How else would we know how important they are to us?"

"You can be mad at...how things went. You can swear and curse the fates. But when it comes to the end, you have to let go."

"Sometimes we're on a collision course and we just don't know it. Whether it's by accident or by design, there's not a thing we can do about it."

"Your life is defined by its opportunities, even the ones you miss."

"It's a funny thing about coming home. It looks the same, smells the same, feels the same. You realize that what's changed is YOU."

"For what it's worth, it's never to late to be whoever you want to be. There's no time limit. You can change or stay the same. There's no rules to this thing. We can make the best or the worst of it. I hope you make the best of it. I hope you see things that startle you. I hope you meet people with a different point of view. I hope you live a life you're proud of.  If you find you're not, I hope you find the strength to start all over again."

Deep stuff, huh? Very powerful words that I find have helped to define my truth. 

If I were more eloquent, my thoughts about life might sound something like those quotes. For now, I must just make do by giving these words a hearty "AMEN!" One of the things that writing has allowed me to do is to reflect on how Charlotte's journey has shaped my perception of reality, relationships, and spirituality.  Seeing our experiences as life lessons can be both maddening and comforting at the same time. It's a profound paradox that I face every day. 
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Edge of Seventeen

It's that time of year when the blog musings center on my grief journey. Every year, it seems like we are busy with end-of-the-year school activities and the start of summer, planning vacations, and then (kablam)...it's almost July 9.  Grief is funny. Grief is weird. I remember very early after Charlotte died, I watched the movie Rabbit Hole.  There's an amazingly poignant scene where Nicole Kidman's character is talking with another woman who lost a child over 10 years before (played by Dianne Wiest). She talks about grief being like a brick in your pocket. It never goes away. Sometimes you can even forget it's there. But it comes back and makes its presence known from time to time. And (she says) "it's what you have of them."    I probably did not fully realize then what a powerful and true analogy that is. As time goes on, our grief changes. Yet, it is always there on the edge of things. It sits in that pocket and sometimes makes itself known.  This
Post a Comment
Read more

The Stages of Grief: COVID Edition

It's 2020. It's almost Christmas. We're still in the middle of a pandemic. In fact, we are experiencing what appears to be an incredible surge that is exerting tremendous pressure on our healthcare and social service system. The headlines are clear: we're not done with this madness and December 31, 2020 will not magically be the "end of it".  Earlier in the year, our family thought about whether we might be able to travel at this time. We thought that maybe the curve would be flat enough that we could take a few days away from home during the Christmas holidays. We realized that the pandemic would still be happening, but with the right protections and with prolific mask usage, we could get a much-needed change of scenery. During what is now (clearly) a delusional thought process, we booked a stay in Gatlinburg, Tennessee for the week of December 19th. Spoiler alert: we canceled the trip almost two weeks ago.  Canceling this trip was not a tragedy. In fact, I
1 comment
Read more

Bittersweet Sixteen

I think about Charlotte every single day. However, this time of year, I'm flooded with all kinds of memories as we commemorate the anniversary of her birth. This year feels like a bit of a milestone. Sixteen.  If cancer had not taken her life back in 2010, I have a feeling I would be planning a massive birthday celebration this year. 16 always feels like a landmark year in someone's life.  I have been thinking a great deal about the last birthday party we had for Charlotte in 2009. We didn't know it at the time, but we were halfway through her treatment journey. We had been through three major brain surgeries and a few rounds of inpatient chemotherapy. Treatments were not going well. In fact, right after her birthday, we would make the trip to Houston, Texas where we would settle in for about 10 weeks of proton beam radiation treatments and a new customized chemotherapy protocol. This was the unspoken "last chance option" to beat that aggressive brain tumor into
2 comments
Read more