Memento Mori

Don’t give away time, you may never get it back.

I can’t help but think about this statement today. I just came back from a wake where I spent an entire day lamenting death. There was a death in the family and I am thoughtful. The wife of my step-uncle passed away on Tuesday night. I was not close to her at all. I didn’t know who she was as a person, how she lived, what her dreams were, what made her smile. She was 38 years old, a full decade my junior.

She was so young.

I didn’t know anything about her except perhaps that she smoked as much as me and that she was in real estate. Once upon a time, during the pandemic she contacted me on Facebook. This is how not-close-at-all we were, we didn’t have each other’s phone numbers. The purpose of her reaching out was to try and sell me property. I was not in the market for such a thing, which she accepted graciously and I thought that was that. But she remained in touch. Not annoyingly so. Just the occasional message here and there, just to check up on me. A kindness really. She didn’t need to do that. She knew I wasn’t going to buy from her. We would see each other at family events, say hi to one another and leave it at that. No real conversations. A lot of small talk. Then, one day, maybe two years ago, she invited me out and I said yes. We had dinner and drinks and talked about the family. All her frustrations with her husband’s family–her in-laws–and what’s become of her relationship with my father and stepmother, all that good stuff. We had laughs and, thanks to the overflowing alcohol, she spoke to me with an openness and intimacy reserved only to those closest to you. She put down her guard. But it’s a kindness that I appreciated even if I didn’t deserve it. Yet I never returned it. I said we should do it more often, which she seemed to like the idea of.

It never happened again. I didn’t make the effort to grow the makings of a relationship. I thought we had time to get to know one another. Don’t rush, give it time, I thought.

Don’t give away time, you may never get it back.

So many things I didn’t know about her before she passed away. And how quick and tragic it all was too. She gave birth a week ago. I didn’t know that. I didn’t even know she was pregnant. We never shared news like that with each other. Her oldest was five years old and her youngest was a week old when she died. Here Tuesday afternoon. Gone Tuesday night. How… how is this even a thing? Yet, that’s what happened. The story I’ve been told was that she at three in the afternoon she fainted, had a seizure and died before the ambulance reached the hospital. Everyone in the family was devastated. She was a favorite because she took the time, energy, and patience to become part of a highly dysfunctional family when she could so easily have remained an outsider. I was, still am distraught and I was the most stranger to her.

I was fine driving that two-hour drive to the wake. But I could feel the emotions bubbling up inside as soon as I parked. That walk from the car to the funeral hall felt like forever. And I kept it together, even when I saw the coffin from the room’s door. But then her five year old daughter–whom I recognize by face but whose name then I didn’t even know–the bravest five year I will ever meet, greeted me and said, “Do you want to see my mom?” with a face that bore no pain, no sorrow, said it in the most matter-of-factly way possible. I found myself swallowing phlegm and gently touched the shoulder of Charlyn–her name is Charlyn–and whispered so softly I couldn’t hear myself, “It’s okay. I’ll do it.” And then I cried in front of the coffin, looking at the face of a stranger who could’ve been my friend if I didn’t give time away.

I stayed at the wake, talking to people, trying my best to get out of the way, drowning out the family squabbles that tend to erupt when any feuding members are in the same room, and watched the dearly departed’s husband, now a widower. If we were devastated, he was catatonic. My younger brother took the herculean task of being by his side even though they’re not talking. Just making sure he doesn’t do anything foolish. They were close. Again, I don’t exactly have a relationship with the husband so I stayed out of the way. But I observed. This man’s life has ended, clearly. This was not a fanciful met-you-ten-years-ago-and-we-got married affair. She was her college love. They’ve been together in one shape or another for decades at this point. And on his face is a loss so huge it could swallow the whole world. How can he move on? I don’t know. I can’t imagine.

It’s a heartbreak that I can’t help–rather selfishly because the world revolve around me–compare to my own.

January of this year the person who I thought was the love of my life left me. I’m still asking myself why but I do know why. I stopped being good enough, she’s outgrown me. It’s been a fucked up two years. I lose my job and then she decided she no longer loved me. I had felt so used by her that, ten months afterwards, I am not done crucifying her. I have inside me an anger so deep that it cannot be reached no matter how hard I tried so I could move on. I have not forgiven her. I don’t know that I ever will.

But I don’t think the pain of my loss could ever reach the pain my step-uncle feels right now with losing the love of his life. My world collapsed but it did not end. I was never catatonic like he was. I wanted to embrace him tightly and whisper, “This too shall pass.” But… no, not me. That message cannot be given to him by me. I have not earned that right. All I could do was observe. When I left I didn’t even say goodbye. Instead I told his sisters that I was going. I told them he doesn’t look like he needed the bother.

As a watch collector, I sometimes catch myself feeling ridiculous. This is ridiculous. I am ridiculous. I love looking at the dial instead of the time. I love the measuring device instead of the thing the device is measuring. Here’s another one, I say, “life is too short” to mean I should buy a watch today instead of tomorrow. That’s not what life is too short should mean. It should mean something bigger than finding the next fix, and I don’t mean moving from watches to another item of obsession. Just…

I wish I could do a proper eulogy for my distant relative. But I don’t know anything about her. All I could say now is, she gave me a kindness when she didn’t need to. I’m so sorry for wasting so much time on frivolity. I wish I knew you.