Life Is Fleeting
Dedicated to my Uncle Benny
I woke up thinking about my uncle today. I know he is not doing too well and that his time with us is very limited. My dad left work and my parents will be headed to see him soon. I can’t imagine what my dad is feeling. Knowing you are on your way to say goodbye to your brother. My heart breaks for my uncle and the onset of his illness that has claimed his life so quickly. My heart breaks for my beloved aunts who has slowly been watching him slip away. My heart breaks for my dad who is such a kindhearted man, who has already lost so many people in his family: parents, aunts, uncles, cousins, and now his brother.
I grew up seeing a lot of aunt and uncle when they lived here. I always stayed the night with them, and I knew then just how much they loved me. They were different than my parents, and I loved that about them. I remember their love for the ocean, and I often wondered if they are part of the reason, I am a scuba diver today. I have always watched their life from a distance and thought “I think I want to live like them someday.”
My uncle worked his entire life. I do believe he might have retired recently. What a cruel thought that he worked his whole life to retire only to be taken from this world sooner than anyone would be prepared for including him. It is times just like this one when you realize that all the things that you think matter really don’t and it frustrates me to know that we all even need to be reminded of that. Life is fleeting and we all know this, we all see it, and we all experience this with each person that leaves our lives through the transition of death, and yet we still move forward living day to day like fucking robots, mindless in almost everything that we do.
In a world where I feel so much different than most people, almost a world that often feels like I wasn’t meant for, I find solace in knowing that my uncle and I felt the same about a lot of things. I suppose you could call him a conspiracy theorist, but my uncle is not someone that you could put a label on. I believe the last time I texted him it was a small discussion about the Earth being flat. He might have already known he was sick then, but he did not tell me. We simply talked about the information surrounding the topic of the earth being flat. These small sporadic conversations mean the world to me and something I will cherish for my lifetime.
My uncle is unapologetically himself. Others may have thought he lived and thought even spoke unconventional but, I found it nothing short of admirable. He is an example of how I want to continue to show up in this world. I will never understand this chapter of his life. I will never understand the reasons for the way things are now but I don’t think that I was meant to. That is what we do when something devastating happens. We try to make sense of it. While there may be a variety of reason as to why even I react this way, it ultimately comes down to selfish reasons. We are human and we want to avoid pain. The loss of someone we love is painful. It is not meant to make sense. There is no lesson to be learned here.
It shouldn’t take someone’s else life to remind me that my own is fleeting and yet here I am thinking about it, and it makes me so angry at myself and angry at life itself.
What have I been doing with my time? I am constantly worried about everything and for what? I am angry at the system in which we live. A system that we have allowed ourselves to be enslaved in. Yesterday one of best friends expressed that she wished she could stay home and be outside all the time to play with her son. This should be her choice if she wanted it and yet we live in a society that doesn’t allow us to have these options. We must work our lives away to pay for things that we do not even really own. We are having to ask permission to live our lives, but society is designed so that we are a slave to it instead. My friend should be able to stay at home and play outside with her son every single day if that is what she chooses but to survive she must work endlessly to provide for herself and her family. There is no balance between work and play. It is only work and then we find ourselves at the end of our lives wondering what we were doing this whole time or knowing everything we thought mattered, simply didn’t.
As my uncle lays on his death bed, I wonder what he thinks about his life. I wonder about the lessons that he learned and what he will take with him when he goes. I am looking at my own life knowing I need to do something differently, but not knowing exactly what that means. How do you call back your power when you feel so powerless? Even the voice inside my head is telling me “Your tiny voice does not matter. You don’t matter” But another voice is saying that I am so much bigger than I can imagine.
It is time to shut out the noise. (even more so than I already do)
To my Uncle Benny: I love you FOREVER!!! You may be ready to leave this Earth, but you will forever be in my heart, and I will move forward in gratitude knowing that you are there. Say hello to Papa and Gramma for me, and Emma if she happens to be there. I am proud to be your niece and I will be here thinking of you and thinking of things. (Like the world being flat and what NASA is all about really.) My promise to you is to remain curious, question everything, and most importantly be unapologetically me. Thank you for being my uncle, thank you for allowing me to be a part of your journey here, and thank you for loving me. I LOVE YOU! Rest Easy, Transition Peacefully, and guide us if you feel called to.
Xoxo
Brittany