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In 2022 I turn 30 years old. Most of my friends are already in their early to mid-thirties, and some are forty or older.
I know other circumstances are present these days, but the number of health problems appearing in my and my friends' lives seems to be growing exponentially. A close friend recently lost on of his parents. My uncle has been struggling with a very rare brain condition that has led to rapid-onset dementia. My in-laws have lost several of their peers to COVID-19. And on much smaller scales, I've had to come to terms with the fact that maintaining my own health is much harder than it was in my university days.
All of these things are frustrating, frightening, and sometimes even traumatizing to deal with. But strangely, they also provide a sense of grounding, an appreciation of reality for what it is.
I had a very different perspective on death when I was younger, because it happened to people far older than me, of whom I had almost no understanding. The first of my grandparents died when I was only three years old, and a second one died when I was eight. I didn't know either of them very well, and while the losses were of course sad, they didn't affect me on a deep level like they did my parents. The sting of death was still a far and foreign concept. I, like many children, understood on an intellectual level that death happens, but I had no comprehension that it was something that will one day happen to me.
When I was 17, an uncle--my father's younger brother--died due to a freak accident. Out of my three uncles, he lived the closest to us, so we saw him quite frequently. It was the closest lost of a loved one I'd experienced to that point, and it shook me and my family to the core. My own mortality started to come into focus for me.
One of my favorite sayings goes thus:
Innocence ends the moment you realize you're going to die. Maturity begins the moment you accept it.
I'm now reaching the point in my life where most of the losses I experience will be much closer to me. Some questions follow from that realization. Have I grown enough as a person to handle those losses? Will I find that I can't function without the people I love? How do they want to be remembered, and will I honor that legacy? Do I have the maturity to face the reality of death with dignity and valor?
None of these are easy questions to answer. In fact, trying to find a simple solution would itself be evidence that I'm not ready to face them. But the march of time is unstoppable, and I must face them sooner or later.
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[Last updated: 2022-02-08]