Running on Faith (sorry, I can't be snarky today)

It occurred to me today that, of all the things we expect of death, we are seldom prepared to welcome it into our lives. That statement probably seems a bit oxymoronic but I'm not talking about accepting one's own death, I'm referring to accepting a death that tolls on us.

It’s easy to rationalize that the death of an elderly or sick person is inevitable or expected but somehow people seem to perpetually hold onto the hope that death will never come. At least it seems that way. How else can we explain away the sudden pain, anger, and anguish that follows. Sure, being shocked by a sudden death makes sense. But what of the slowly approaching death? Why are we never prepared?

Sheesh! If I could answer that question, you'd be reading this in a $24.95 soft cover, stamped by the Oprah Book Club. I have no idea why man, over thousands of years of civilization, has never bothered to properly prepare himself for the inevitable. We teach children of heaven and hell, and we teach adolescents about drugs, alcohol, and sexually transmitted plague, but we never stop to say, "By the way, people are going to die all around you for your entire life and you'll have absolutely no fucking clue how to reason it away."

The truth is, we cannot ever prepare for the unexplainable. Most people need the answers to see the reasons. We diagnose bad weather with global warming. We excuse psychosis with chemical imbalance. We site social ill when justifying crime. But we can't explain death. We can't even explain life. Billions of people walk around every single day wondering "why."

Well, I give up. We'll never know why. I suppose if we ever did know, we'd find a way to figure out why not.

The way I see it, since we can't figure things out, we have two options. We can be completely apathetic (and at the same time completely selfish because, let's face it, that's what true apathy is) or you can just take your lumps like a beat dog.

The only true pleasures in life are love and serenity and you couldn't properly define them with a thousand pens and a million learned scholars. These pillars of humanity are abstracts. So we're stuck accepting (or not) that there are only two constants, death and taxes - and I'm not getting into taxes.

All in all, we don't have it so bad though. We distract ourselves with luxuries, material pursuits, and -thank goodness- family. Thankfully we only encounter death from time to time and it sucks. We deal with it in our own ways and we move on. Each scar gives us a new perspective on things. Each moment of despair exposes a new piece of wisdom. And, with any luck, we find a way to -as the song goes- keep on keepin' on.

Rest in peace, Ruth. I will truly miss you. I pray that losing you will somehow teach me how to live and love better.