When we learn that we have a limited life, such as those to whom a medical issue, a mortal one, is announced, it's not all bad news. It's the worst, while being, also, an opportunity. This idea sounds obnoxious, but in truth, while it's something seldom regarded as "nice" there is an up side. In the elderly, those who can see the endings of their times, it becomes a rather pleasant space in which their lives can be reviewed. I recall the in-laws, whom we cared for at their endings, sitting in the living room of the house we shared, going through their photo albums hours on end. They sat opposite each other in their comfy old chairs, talking about their past friends and places and events as they turned pages. Most of the day, each being very old and not able to move about, enjoyed at length, bringing back memories of their long, sweet lives. They lived through the first and second world wars, they remembered the Great Depression, their moving to Canada and making it their home, and rearing their family and becoming responsible citizens in a new place. They led in their time, "easy" lives but they worked hard, and at the same time, were comfortable with their place in society. They contributed by volunteering and becoming an active, quiet part of their chosen world in a new country. During this time, they were fortunate to be able to consider their good times and bad, their places in family and community and their love for each other. The latter had gone on beyond a sixtieth year of marriage. Not everyone has a chance to see their entire life, one's own, with that kind of perspective. Often impatient younger family are annoyed to hear their stories over and over but the stories are what builds family. When a life-ending announcement says that you are going to die, not pass, but die, and be gone forever, it can be a great sadness. You will lose all you have ever known and loved. But it does awaken something else. It's then that the many scenes of your life come alive again. Even though it's not, for me, in evidence at the moment, it is going to occur in my relatively short future, and that gives me pause, now, to think about my life. I have the dubious good fortune of being able to contemplate it, in my early morning coffee-on-the-deck sessions. Your memory lane has it's place also. These times bring, surprisingly and randomly, certain scenarios and we have time to analyse them to find some kind of reason or value. It's as though one can "fix" what one didn't like about them and then be able to move on. Of course, one can't really "move on" because it's too late, but what one can do, is allow a second look and perhaps form a second opinion that wasn't possible before. That's the "luxury" of memory recall. Those younger, sadly, who are shocked to learn their lives are going to end before they thought they would, are not only dropped into a sudden maelstrom of medical treatments and grieving social surroundings, they are given little time to meditate on the full length of their lives and times. They are thrown into a sudden pit of conflicting sensations and it's very difficult to concentrate on anything. But when we are alongside someone in this particular place, and there is relative peace, we can help by listening, just hearing and not adding to it. There is an advantage, strange as it may seem, that this person is able to find time to look down the wrong end of the telescope of life at its precious parts to see some or all of that life, and learn its value. It's an opportunity to sort through it, relive it, and perhaps to find a little gold in it to savor and smile over.
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