The Days Before the Date
We all have one...An expiration date.
From the moment we enter this world, there is a date somewhere ahead of us that none of us can see. We don't know the day, the hour, or the circumstances. Yet death is one of the few certainties of life.
None of us are getting out of here alive.
That might sound terribly grim, but lately I've been wondering if it really is.
No matter how carefully we care for ourselves, eventually we will depart this earthly life. I believe eating well, exercising, caring for our bodies and making good choices can certainly improve the quality of the years we're given. But I've also known people who seemed to do everything right and left this world far too soon.
I've given up trying to understand why some are given decades and others so much less. Instead, I'm learning to be grateful for the day in front of me.
My faith shapes much of how I think about death. I am blessed to know my Creator, and through years of studying Scripture and growing in my faith, I have come to believe that what awaits us is not something to fear, but a place of restoration. A peaceful eternity in the presence of our Savior.
Getting there, however, is another matter.
Life on Earth can be extraordinarily beautiful and extraordinarily difficult—sometimes within the very same day. There is joy and suffering, pleasure and pain, beginnings and endings. Always a balance.
Perhaps the hardest part of death belongs to those left behind. They are the ones who must wake the next morning and remember.
In the beginning, grief can make even breathing feel like an effort. That first waking thought of loss can arrive before our feet ever touch the floor. Somehow we get up. Somehow we continue. Eventually, we learn to carry the loss differently. But it never completely leaves us.
I learned about death fairly young.
My grandfather William was one of my earliest experiences with it. I remember the days leading up to his death and visiting him in the hospital. My sister and I were mostly relegated to the waiting room, where we occupied ourselves getting into trouble…riding elevators and playing with random wheelchairs to fight our boredom.
We were children. We didn't understand the gravity of what was happening in the rooms beyond us. I think I began to understand at the funeral. Later, I lost my father while I was still young. Perhaps losing him so early is part of what taught me to think about death the way I do today.
Loss is intensely personal. Losing someone we've loved for a lifetime—a parent, child, spouse, sibling or dear friend—can be excruciating. Yet sometimes even the death of an acquaintance or someone we've only known from afar can affect us deeply.
Perhaps those losses become a mirror. They remind us of our own mortality and of the people we love who will someday leave us or whom we will leave behind.
Then come the questions.
Could something have been done?
Could the course have been changed?
What if we'd known?
What if there had been more time?
My own faith has led me to believe that our days are already known. Others may believe differently, and that's okay. For me, there is comfort in accepting that I am not in control of that date. My responsibility is what I do with the days before it. And some of those days will include grief.
There isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about my mother. Or my Nana, Florence. This may sound strange, but in a way, I visit them every day. I've simply learned a different way to communicate with them.
Flowers and plants remind me of both of them. A beautiful blossom can stop me in my tracks, and suddenly it feels as though I'm taking a little stroll with them again. For a moment, the distance between here and wherever they are doesn't seem quite so vast.
My father meets me in the trees. He was a tree surgeon, and in his spare time he kept a large greenhouse where he grafted pines and experimented with hybridizing them. Perhaps that's why trees have never been simply trees to me.
I find him there. I find him on mountain trails and during long hikes, beneath towering branches and along quiet paths. Nature gives me a place to remember him without forcing the memory. It simply arrives.
My oldest sister loved baking delightful treats. Interestingly, I never made the connection until recently, but I adore bakeries. Always have. I love stepping through the door and being enveloped by that unmistakable fragrance of something wonderful baking. Maybe a small part of that love belongs to her.
Our senses hold memories in ways we don't always recognize. A perfume. A cake. Coffee brewing. Fresh bread. Flowers. Pine needles.
Suddenly, someone we loved is standing beside us again.
Years ago in college, I remember seeing a course about death and dying. I thought it sounded terribly depressing. Honestly, it frightened me. But several students told me it was one of the most meaningful courses they had taken.
"It's really about living," they said. At the time, that surprised me. Now I understand.
Later, living on a farm for seven years taught our family something similar. Life and death existed alongside one another every day. Birth, growth, illness, predators, loss, renewal—it was simply part of the rhythm. Death wasn't separate from life. It belonged to it.
These thoughts have weighed more heavily on me recently as I've shared in a friend's grief. Sometimes there isn't anything to fix. There aren't perfect words capable of untangling the pain.
Sometimes loving someone means simply listening.
Sitting beside them.
Remembering with them.
And allowing grief to be what it is.
Perhaps knowing that our lives have expiration dates isn't meant to frighten us at all.
Perhaps it is meant to remind us to live.
To make the phone call.
Take the walk.
Drink the coffee.
Plant the flowers.
Step inside the bakery.
Say I love you.
Forgive.
Notice the people sitting across the table from us.
And on the days when grief comes calling, perhaps we can allow ourselves to visit those we've lost in whatever places they still seem to find us—in gardens, beneath trees, along mountain trails, through familiar fragrances or in the first bite of something that tastes remarkably like home.
I pray for those of us still living and grieving, and I trust that those who have gone before us are resting peacefully with our Savior.
Until the day our own expiration date arrives, we have today. Another gift waiting to be unwrapped.
And perhaps the best way to honor those who left before us is not to stop missing them. It is to keep living and to carry them with us while we do.
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