While I Still Have Eyes to See It

I was born January 7, 1958. My friend Renee was born exactly one week later, January 14.

We didn't meet until we were sophomores in high school, and it was years before we discovered we'd been born in the same hospital. I was premature and spent the first month of my life there, so I was still there, and I'm sure I welcomed Renee when she arrived. From then on, we decided we'd obviously known each other since birth. We laughed about the important conversations we must have had from our bassinets in the newborn nursery.

Technically, we decided we were each other's oldest friends.

Last Tuesday, Renee died.

She was 68 years old. My age. Just six or seven weeks earlier, she had been living her life, seemingly healthy and active. Then came cancer, and almost before the rest of us could comprehend what was happening, she was gone.

A few months ago, I wrote about the big, beautiful Italian family that took me in when I was a teenager and taught me something about how families could love. Renee was how I found my way into them. She was this tiny, beautiful girl who may have been the sweetest person I've ever known. You loved her instantly and had no doubt she loved you too. Through her, I met her sister Michelle, who became one of my dearest friends, and eventually their whole family showed me a different kind of family love.

I've thought about death for a long time. I've studied it, read about it, talked about it, and written about it. I have a deep faith. I don't know exactly what happens when we leave these bodies, and I'm comfortable saying that. I believe there is more. I believe Renee has returned to Love and to loved ones who left before her.

Her death hasn't made me question that.

It has made me think a hell of a lot about being alive.

Every morning since Renee died, I've looked out the window at the sunrise, and one of my first thoughts has been the same.

Renee isn't here to see this.

So I take the sunrise in a little longer.

I watch the shadows in the clouds, the places where the light breaks through, the colors changing while I'm standing there. This week the mornings have been spectacular.

But when they're not, I look anyway.

I've wondered for several years about our senses and what happens to them when we die. If we don't take these bodies with us, do we leave behind everything that comes with them? Will we smell flowers wherever we're going? Taste something wonderful? Hear music? Feel the warmth of another person's hand? See color?

I have no idea. I believe that whatever comes next offers ways of experiencing beauty that I can't begin to comprehend from inside this human body.

But right now I have eyes. I want to see. I have ears. I want to hear. I want to smell the lilacs and coffee and rain. I want to feel warm water, cold air, and someone's hand in mine.

I want to use it all up.

I've said some version of that for thirty years. I've always wanted to slide into death's door having really lived this life. At 68, though, I'm realizing I may not have completely understood what I meant.

I used to think that using my life up had a lot to do with doing things. Going places. Taking chances. Trying something new. And I still believe in all of that.

I'm writing a book for the first time. I'm learning to paint, despite no evidence so far that the art world has been waiting 68 years for me to pick up a paintbrush.

I've even tried crocheting.

I suck at crocheting, and I truly do not use that word...ever. But it's the truth.

The yarn and hooks are still here. I have NOT given up. I may give it another try, but right now it's no longer fun, so I stopped.

I'm hoping using my life up does not require me to use every skein of yarn.

But I'm beginning to think doing new things is only part of what I've meant all these years.

Because using a life all the way up can't only mean showing up for the parts I enjoy.

I've made some big choices in recent years, including moving to places where I didn't know anyone. We talk a lot about the courage it takes to make a change. We don't talk nearly as much about living with everything that comes afterward.

Choices have consequences, even good choices.

I've made choices I still believe were right and discovered there were parts of living with them I hadn't anticipated. I've gained things and lost things. There are days when I miss the familiarity of knowing my place and knowing my people. There are things about my life now that I love, and there are things I miss dearly. Sometimes something feels missing, and I don't have an easy answer for what to do about it.

For someone who has spent much of her life figuring things out, that's uncomfortable.

Maybe using this life up means being here for that too.

Lately, life has given me an even more direct lesson in how little control we sometimes have.

Harold was recently diagnosed with prostate cancer. We're still learning exactly what that means and what comes next. My natural instinct is predictable. Research everything. Ask questions. Understand every option. Come up with a plan.

Some of that is useful, but I’m reminded that Harold isn't my latest project.

I'm trying to pay more attention to what this experience is like for him, rather than immediately trying to manage it. Sometimes that means asking him how he's doing and then listening long enough to actually hear his answer. It means trying not to immediately tell him what I think we should do or how I think he should feel. This is his body and his life.

I can't research our way out of every uncertainty.

Sometimes I just need to love the man who's sitting in it.

The other afternoon, after feeding Lou, Harold came into the room where I was lying on the bed reading and sort of launched himself onto the bed beside me.  I use the word launched generously. He's 68 too and has had several back surgeries.

He wrapped his arms around me and playfully kissed my neck.

Then he tried to get back up.

That part took considerably more effort.

I started laughing. So did he.

There we were. Cancer somewhere in the background, an aging dog nearby, two adventurous old folks on the bed, and one of us temporarily stuck there.

Life doesn't stop being funny because something serious is happening. And maybe that's part of using it all up too: not letting what might happen steal what's happening.

Lou is getting older. I see it in his back legs when he climbs the stairs now. So every morning I massage him, spending a little extra time on those legs that have carried him on so many walks with me.

My hands can do that today.

I'm starting to understand that using up this life isn't just about squeezing more good things into whatever time I have left.

It's being willing to be here for all of it.

The things I chose and the things I didn't. The painting and the loneliness. The kiss on my neck and the cancer diagnosis. An old dog's aching legs. Grief that I can physically feel in my heart, my solar plexus, and my gut.

The sunrise and the fact that Renee isn't here to see it.

I can love my life and still struggle with parts of it. I can be grateful and want something more. I can have faith about death and hurt like hell when someone I love dies.

Both things can be true.

One of the biggest mistakes we make is spending too much of our lives waiting for the parts we don't like to pass so we can get back to the living.

But this is the living.

This messy, funny, heartbreaking, uncertain, beautiful stuff.

All of it.

I still want to slide into death's door having used this life up. I just understand that a little differently now.

I don't need to arrive exhausted from cramming in one more adventure. I want to arrive knowing I was here for my own life.

Really here.

Renee reminded me of that.

I don't know what she can see now. I don't know whether there are sunrises wherever she is or whether she has any need for them. I trust she is surrounded by something more beautiful than I know how to imagine.

But I'm still here.

I still have eyes.

And this morning, the sun came up.

So I looked.

I really soaked it in.

Love is ALL there is,

Diana