A few weeks ago, my aunt died. She took her final breath on my birthday.
I wasn’t able to cry for a week. I watched from the sidelines as my family members went through their various phases of grief. I was numb, able to show up but not able to feel.
Then, it hit me.
Driving home on a Saturday night, with a certain song playing and with openness in my heart, it flooded in like tsunami. I cried and cried and cried some more. This person, who had been in my life since my birth, was just gone. Memories came rushing back, along with the desire to return to more joyous times. I felt the weight of powerlessness once again. Death is our only guarantee in this life, and there’s not a single thing any of us can do about it. As I’m sure it is with all of you, this is one of the most difficult things for me to accept with the human condition. It is the greatest burden of the conscious mind.
Two weeks after my aunt passed away, my friend the reaper struck again. I was on a job with my brother and sister (I own a construction company and my siblings work for me), doing some renovations for an elderly couple who we’ve known for some years. We said our hellos, prepped the site for the following day’s work and said our goodbyes. The husband, a kind man who had been suffering from Parkinson’s disease for several years, said three words as we left:
“See you tomorrow.”
We were the last people to see him alive. When I got the call the following morning, we were already on the way to their house. Unlike my experience with my aunt, this time it hit me like a lightning bolt. I couldn’t believe it - there were no words, no thoughts - just shock. Those three words kept echoing in my head. They still do.
Death has painted the background of what has otherwise been one of the most beautiful summers of my life. It’s difficult to come up with words for what this brings up. The first layer is the muck - the fear, the anger, the despair, the powerlessness - all the reasons we shirk from even the slightest mention of death. If I stay with these feeling long enough, however, there’s another layer underneath. It’s warmer, calmer and quieter, and it’s filled with acceptance and gratitude. Acceptance that this is the way things are and must be, and gratitude that I’m even alive to being with.
Imagine a world where we all lived forever. To start, this would be logistically impossible (not enough room on mama Earth), but beyond that, I can’t imagine our experience of life would be any better. In my opinion, it would in fact be a whole lot worse. The reason our experiences in this life are so meaningful is the fact they they don’t last forever. Love, sex, friendship, joy - they all end eventually, and that’s what makes them so beautiful. Well, they’re beautiful if we choose to appreciate them, and that’s where gratitude comes in.
Gratitude is simply having the awareness that all things will come to an end. The “good” things - the people we love, the blessings we receive, the gifts we are given - can be cherished when seen with eyes of appreciation. As someone who is always striving for more, always looking to improve, always looking over the next horizon, this can be very difficult. There’s no greater reminder to appreciate the things we have than death - the end of ends. The Stoics understood this appreciation well - here’s a few quotes from the Stoic greats:
"As gratitude is a necessary, and a glorious virtue, so also it is an obvious, a cheap, and an easy one; so obvious that wherever there is life there is a place for it; so cheap, that the covetous man may be gratified without expense, and so easy that the sluggard may be so likewise without labor."
– Seneca
"Do not indulge in dreams of having what you have not, but reckon up the chief of the blessings you do possess, and then thankfully remember how you would crave for them if they were not yours.”
-Marcus Aurelius
“Remember to conduct yourself in life as if at a banquet. As something being passed around comes to you, reach out your hand and take a moderate helping. Does it pass you by? Don’t stop it. It hasn’t yet come? Don’t burn in desire for it, but wait until it arrives in front of you. Act this way with children, a spouse, toward position, with wealth—one day it will make you worthy of a banquet with the gods.”
-Epictetus
Gratitude itself is enough, but I have found that it is often accompanied by an unexpected companions: courage. I see people talk about gratitude as if it’s something passive and submissive, but that’s only half the story. Yes, as the Stoics so eloquently pointed out, it’s about being content with the way things are and not constantly desiring more, but it’s also about having courage and honoring those very things we are grateful for.
He who is grateful for his body will nourish it and strengthen it.
He who is grateful for his mind will explore it and use it to its fullest capacities.
He who is grateful for his heart will follow it wherever it may lead him.
He who is grateful for his life will have the courage to change it.
That last line hits home the most. I imagine it may seem somewhat paradoxical, but in my experience the most profound things are. Gratitude doesn’t mean letting life beat us down. It doesn’t mean staying stuck - in a relationship, an addiction, a dead-end job or whatever it might be. It means appreciating the good things we have and having the courage to change the things that take us away from that. This is the Great Dance of life - passive and active, non-action and action, yin and yang. Sometimes we must let things be. Others times we must act. This applies to everything in life, gratitude included.
I don’t know what happens when we die, and the truth is I won’t know until I get there. What I do know is that the only answer to death is life. Take a moment today to appreciate everything you have - the people you love, your family, your friends, your dog, even the eyes that are allowing you to read this right now. If something needs to change in your life, change it! End that toxic relationship, make amends with the person you truly love, quit that soul-sucking job, start that business you’ve been putting off for the last decade. Life is too short for anything less.
Are you grateful to be alive? If the answer is yes, you know what you have to do.
-D
R.I.P. Kathy Goold & Ed Donlon
P.S. I also write poetry, which you can find here:
Thank you for this.... RIP.... You brought up so many feelings in me.... old and new.... However, I am grateful for the life God has blessed me with...
3 stages of gratitude.
1-RECOGNITION. The first step is recognizing that you are going to be okay. ...
2-ACKNOWLEDGEMENT. The second stage of gratitude is acknowledgment. ...
3-APPRECIATION.