Comings and Goings

Even after 30 plus years of marriage, this is the kind of exchange that still happens in our household. I ask, “Is Easter over now or does it continue in some way?” (I had a feeling, partly based on the way that Christmas also keeps going, but somehow it wasn’t firmed lodged in my mind). Rob replies, no doubt summoning his patience, “We’re still in Easter, all the way until Pentecost.” I refrain from asking exactly when Pentecost is, believing that it’s not really essential for me to know, head crowded with an array of other matters, and also that I’d be pushing my luck.

But what I definitely do know is that the death and life mix, along with other kinds of opposites, that the resurrection is all about has a way of continuing well past Easter Sunday. For starters, why is it so chilly around here still, in late April, while the flowers are daring to come out?

Here and Not Here

Last weekend we attended a funeral for a beloved friend which was so moving on many levels, not least of which was the fact that important work she started is continuing in full force. On the front of the program was the title “A Service of Thanksgiving and Celebration of Life.” The very next day, we got word of the death of someone else who deeply impacted many lives here in New Hampshire; although his passing was not totally unexpected, still the loss was such a blow. There is a kind of knocks-the-wind-out-of-you quality to learning about someone who was just here, now gone.

Recently my brothers and I corresponded on our father’s 110th birthday. Despite the fact that he’s been gone almost 30 years now, as my brother Steve noted, he’s “never far away, that’s certain.”

When I look at the old photo of him as a boy, with the mischievous grin, I get a satisfying sense of the sweep of time. Our own younger son, the one soon to graduate from college, looked something like this about 15 years ago. Yes, it’s sadly true that I haven’t gotten to be with Dad for many years; but it’s also true that our overlapping time together gave me as much as I could possibly hope for, from a parent.

And, during this still-in-Easter time, we just learned of the birth of a spectacular baby girl, daughter of my nephew: another welcome reminder that life pulses on, producing new perfect sets of fingers and toes.

We Go In One Direction

At any one moment in time, each of us is somewhere, approximately, in this progression of ages. (Please forgive the gender binary depiction here, which increasingly seems outdated; and the only-one-skin-color, too.)

With this illustration, I’ve gotten away from the “life triumphing over death” Christian theme a bit, landing more in the “Seven Ages of Man” territory made famous by Jacques in Shakespeare’s As You Like It. The Jesus story, as far as I understand, is not really about aging. And yet, that particular aspect of Nature’s way is what I find myself thinking about a lot these days, helped along by receiving letters like this:

The fact is, occupied with full days which include jotting things down in probably too many notebooks (work tasks, writing activities, mentoring experiences, names of neighbors I meet, tennis dates) I haven’t had a “Turning 65 Checklist.” I’m willing to admit that maybe there is some sense in starting one, even though I’m already two months behind.

My own aging is not really front and center to me, though, because on most days it feels like a very slow ticking clock. Nobody could describe my running pace as speedy, when I look at a photo I startle at the look of my face, and the internal losses don’t really show on the outside; but overall the wear and tear of the past decade has been gently absorbed.

Fire In His Eye, Still

Our dog Rocky, however, makes it impossible to deny the inevitability of getting old. It feels to me as if we’re at that tenderest of times now. Almost 13, he is still enthusiastic about heading out on walks, and often heads over to the car in anticipation of a short jaunt over to our favorite dirt road. Now, though, jumping up to the back seat gives him pause, especially when it’s time to head home. No doubt his arthritis makes his limbs hurt with the effort. I must seek out one of those ramps that pet companies sell and then be patient while he adjusts to using it.

He looks old here, with those white patches on his head, but the reason he’s in the pond to begin with is that he insisted — with an urgent look in his eye, the one that doesn’t fade with age — that I throw him a stick so he could swim out to it.

Done with life? Oh no, not yet. But the end will come and when it does, I must find a way to be brave.

One of the books I’m reading now is The Power of Fun by Catherine Price (New York: The Dial Press, 2021). Can you imagine a book with this title coming out in, say, the 50’s, when kids were running around outside playing freely for hours, adults were getting together for golf or bridge or cocktail parties, and the only screen time was had on the black and white TV? She begins by positing that there’s a difference between “Fake Fun” and “True Fun.” Here’s how Chapter Two opens:

Before we get into why we’re so susceptible to Fake Fun and why it makes us feel dead inside, let’s pause for a second to discuss why this matters.

It’s quite simple, really: we are going to die.

I’m sorry to be so blunt, but I can’t think of any more succinct way to explain what’s at stake. The reason it’s essential for us to address our metaphorical deadness is that it won’t be long — decades at the most – before we are all literally dead. (p.41)

While I don’t think I feel the blight of “metaphorical deadness,” I do see why she’s taken on this subject. There is something about our current culture that seems averse to encouraging fun for fun’s sake, as if just fooling around, not being “goal oriented” or doing something that leads to something else is wasting time.

Since I started this piece, I’ve found out that Pentecost this year will fall on June 5th. When it arrives, we’ll all be just a little bit older. The whole month of May beckons. While our calendar is filling up, and, even though there’s not one square marked “FUN DAY” (that would take away all the spontaneity) I know that I only need to head out with my dog to get a reminder about why he swims for sticks for as long as he can, and why I need to keep finding my own sticks worth swimming for.

How are you interpreting the life-and-death, death-and-life messages coming your way so far this spring? Are you making anything like 1st of May resolutions?