Ticking Away (the future is an illusion)
The only moment we have is now. And now. And now, and now, and now.
I recently turned 50. Age may be nothing but a number, but a lot changes in this middle season of life. For example, I’ve begun to lose peers I care about: friends, acquaintances, coworkers. People like S., who died of a heart attack at 52, leaving a young widow behind. And B., who died of ovarian cancer. And J., who died of heart failure–while undergoing treatment for cancer. And K., who died of colon cancer in her mid-30s. And most recently, B., who died of cancer on Christmas Eve, leaving behind a wife and three teenagers.
Losses like this change us. They’ve changed me. I’ve renewed my focus on living in the present moment, because it is, in fact, all I have. I can rehash the past, but it is gone. I can stress about the future, but it will never arrive. The only thing that is really real is this moment. And this one. And this one.
Time is literally ticking away.
~~~~~
They were here, lively and alive, and now they’re gone.
All of them.
And I have questions.
Lots of questions.
But not the “Why?” questions you might expect; I think I’ve long since given up trying to make sense of bad things happening to good people.
No, I have questions about WHAT happened.
For starters, are they really gone?
Or just gone from here, but still
…alive…
somewhere else?
I wonder what it was like when they were dying.
How far ahead could they see?
Did they know when the end was near?
Did they pray?
Were they frightened?
Did they have regrets?
Were they in pain?
Did they feel alone?
Or was it beautiful, like many of those who claim they’ve lived through “near-death experiences” say it is?
A warm feeling of being enveloped in perfect love and total acceptance, truly seeing and being seen for the first time?
An overwhelming, all-encompassing sense of well-being, happiness, and peace?
Was there a passageway they had to enter to get to where they were going?
Did they feel a nudge to move toward the light?
Did they feel they were rising, suspended above, letting go, escaping the prison of their own broken-down bodies that had betrayed them?
Did they have a sense they were about to cross over? Did they glimpse loved ones who’d gone before?
Or…
Was it like none of that?
Was it just the end?
Years ago, an elderly friend of mine told me she didn’t believe in an afterlife. She said she thought there was a period after death, not a semi-colon.
She’s been gone for over five years now. I miss her. I wonder if she misses me, or if she “is” at all.
This business of life is not for the faint of heart, though it beats the alternative, as the saying goes.
But sooner or later, our time will come.
Ready or not.
Ashes to ashes.
Dust to dust.
© 2023 Michael J. TenBrink
“Today”
by Jeff Goins
Every day is full of [urgency]. It is all we ever have: this one precious, fleeting moment that never seems to end. Until it does.
This is all fleeting, all passing away sooner than we realize. I can see it in the lines on my face, feel it in my aching bones. Everything is going away—including me—and yet, somehow still here.
What can I do but try to enjoy it? Not capture it or attempt to hold on to what can never be grasped, but simply appreciate what is.
There's so much empathy inside your wondering. Or maybe it's wondering inside your empathy. Well put.