Celebrating Life, not just in Death

  Everyday we find out people that people have died.  It's sad, but it happens everyday and at some point they become regular, routine. Most of the time, perhaps fortunately for us, we don't know who they are. Sometimes it's a soldier killed in battle, or a celebrity death or someone you never met in a town somewhere you've never been. But sometimes, it's someone we know. The longer we are fortunate to live and the more the more people we are fortunate enough to meet, the more likely these daily occurrences will hit close to home, elevating the regular or routine to a painful reflex ranging from tear jerking to heart breaking. I'd have to imagine that most people would, given the chance, eliminate these painful points in their lives. 

   I'm not sure good it'll do, but I'd like to propose maybe it's not so bad. When someone dies, the first thing that happens is we try to come to terms with knowing we'll never see that person here again. But in addition to the sadness that comes from thinking of the future there is a fondness that comes from remembering the past. We are told how they died, but we remember how they lived. We gather round the ones we love and the ones who our loved one lost loved; we laugh, we joke, we cry, we smile...finally. We share stories, remind each other of memories lost or set aside. We confess secrets, fill in the blanks we never got around to filling in ourselves. We celebrate their lives. We do this when people die, but it has nothing to do with death. It's type of emotion that can only life can inspire. 

   I think the mistake we most commonly make is to limit this celebration to the immediate time following their passing. When we're ready to move on from their death we usually seem to move on from their life as well. But why? Life is short, by any measure in the grand scheme painfully so. And the uncertainty, all that is certain is that we won't be here a lot longer than we will be. For those whose time runs out before our own, the most fitting and fulfilling tribute is to never forget, never stop remembering, sharing, celebrating their life for the rest of our own. Living our life to the fullest by honoring what they did to help it be so full and doing so in the company of others, not just alone or in our dreams. When we talk about the ones we loved, tell people about them, they live again. In our words, our hearts and minds, they carry on.

   Last week, during one of those daily occurrences, the person who died was someone I knew. Someone who died well before they should, they I don't imagine there is every a good time for people to lose their loved ones. I hadn't seen or even talked to Brandon Jacks in years, a decade probably. But I was very sad to hear the news because of how happy I am to have known him when I did. Brandon had cancer, stage four, that's what ended his life here. But's it's not what defined him, his strength, courage and positivity and poise are what I'll remember about him, what'll I'll tell people about him. The fight with cancer that took Brandon's life is also what gave hope, inspiration and life to so many others. He first encountered cancer when he was in the eighth grade, the same year that I lost my father to cancer. I was never able to fully grasp what was happening with my Dad, and seeing Brandon being so normal while going through something so extraordinary was one of things that gave me the strength to try and be normal again too. He won his first battle with cancer, willing it into remission and going on to experience high school with his classmates, move on into the real world, get married and have children. But eventually the cancer came back and this time even someone as strong as Brandon, with so much love behind him could not overcome it.

  I will not forget Brandon, and I don't think many other people who were lucky enough to know him will either. My wife knows him now, so do the people I work with, so do a lot of my new friends who I met after Brandon's and my own path lead us in different directions. I told them about him because his story is worth telling and worth hearing. I'll tell my children about him so they know how fortunate they are and how fragile life is. His children will, I can only hope and imagine, constantly be reminded of him by the people who knew him in good times and bad. His family and loved ones, unquestionably hurting now will realize soon I hope, if they haven't already, that while they will not see him here anymore, he is not gone. He doesn't have to be just a memory, none of our loved ones lost do. We just have to make sure we see to it that they live on in our words, in our actions, and in our lives just as we would have in theirs.