I’m not sure whether it’s the time I’ve spent as a quintquagenarian thus far, or the state of the world, but my thoughts have drifted, increasingly, to include my own mortality. I don’t mean this in an uncomfortable way, though these conversations can get cringeworthy quickly. I just mean that I’ve been getting all in my philosophical feelings lately. Before we go any further, I need to clarify a few things. I look at the dusk of my life, hopefully a good 50 years from now, a bit differently as most, so don’t be alarmed. As one time presidential hopeful John Edward’s wife, Elizabeth Edwards, said to Oprah Winfrey, while sitting on Oprah’s couch and being asked how she felt about her metastatic breast cancer diagnosis, “Death just looks different to someone who’s put a child in the ground.” There it is, my point of reference. But, I don’t want to talk about death today. I want to talk about the dead: the beautiful, the incredibly missed, the seemingly perfect people whose gorgeously lit movie reels play over and over in our minds every day. And, I want to talk about how this view destroys their true memory. This, in my humble opinion, is not what they wanted. Not at all.
Girl’s night with friends and a glass or two of a decent merlot inadvertently leads to discussions about my late daughter. There’s always someone who’s never heard the story or has a question or 10 that they want to ask me. Inevitably, there’s an epiphany here and there, like how the senseless death of someone so perfect made them question the existence of God at all. I don’t like that, the perfect part, that is. I think God intends to make us question his existence, because that is how you cultivate faith, the belief in something you cannot see or touch or prove but cling to nevertheless. But, that part about her being perfect really, REALLY upsets me. Because, she wasn’t.
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