There might be a tie-in for basketball somewhere in here, but I can't promise anything.
My grandma, my dad's mom, died Tuesday. She was 93 + 4 months. Why is it that we only care about the partial years at the beginning and the end? The days in the middle count just as much, don't they? Arguably more, I'd say. I get it for babies - the difference between "I'm 2" and "I'm 2 and a half" is adding 25% more to your life. That's a big thing. But for old people - and 93 is pretty damn old - it's more of an accomplishment thing. No matter what, if I'd said she was 93, you'd think "that's old." But she didn't make it to 93.5, so I didn't want to say 93.5, as that's a milestone that she fell just short of. What I'm getting at is that this doesn't matter.
We (my brothers and my parents) were never as close with my dad's parents as we were with my mom's. My mom's mom is still alive - she's just over three months from being 94 - and doing pretty well. She's sharp as a tack mentally, but her body is understandably giving out. But we're not here to talk about her. My dad's parents were church-7-days-a-week Catholic for a few decades, and my parents didn't raise us Catholic. I don't know if that's what caused the divide, but there wasn't a lot of warm and fuzzies in the relationship. They were my grandparents, and I loved them because they were my dad's parents, but they weren't the candy-dish-in-the-kitchen-slip-you-a-$10-bill-and-give-you-an-extra-lavish-birthday-present kind of people, and that was extremely OK. They relaxed a little in their 80s, but were still not "fun" in the grandparent sense. Grandma did loosen up a bit more after grandpa died, which was a little bit funny, but it could have also been her brain giving out a little bit. What I'm getting at is that this doesn't matter either.
My grandma, since she's the one that died, is what I'm going to halfway talk about. She went through some stuff. My grandparents had 7 kids: my dad, his 3 brothers, their sister who had Down's Syndrome and died 3 years ago (not long after my grandpa, her father, died, though those are unrelated facts, I promise), their brother who died of electrocution around age 20, and their brother who died of SIDS. So maybe that explains why they didn't come off as the most free-wheeling, fun-loving pair. They went through some stuff. Of course, then after 65+ years of marriage, my grandpa died, which sent my grandma into an assisted living facility.
Also she had dementia for the last several years. She never lost her pleasant aura though, which helped. A lot. Though this doesn't matter either.
But I talked to my dad a couple of hours after she died. By the way, I don't really care about using "died" instead of "passed." We all know what we mean, so who are we kidding? Anyway, he was looking at a photo that she had in her little apartment/room in the facility (one that my dad had probably put there for her, after bringing it from her other room, where it was brought from her house) and it showed some of the generations beyond her. It was either her with her dad or her grandpa - my great or two great grandfathers. And my dad casually mused on how I obviously never knew them, and how he knew his own grandpa, but not his great grandpa. And in his dealing-with-death musing he just casually let slip "you get two generations and then nobody knows who you are anymore. You don't matter to anyone."
And he's not wrong. And he wasn't saying it to be negative. He was just thinking out loud. And I can't shake it. He's right, but is that bad? Doesn't it just mean that life doesn't need to have a meaning and that we should just enjoy what's happening? Doesn't it mean that stress and worries and pain are pointless to dwell on? Doesn't it mean to just be nice to people and they'll be nice to you and you can enjoy the ultimately minuscule amount of time we actually have here? Doesn't it mean that it doesn't mean anything? Isn't that terrifying? Isn't that freeing? Isn't that perfect? Isn't that a goddamned nightmare?
I don't know what the answer is, and maybe that's the point. There is no answer. There never has been and there probably shouldn't be. If we were raised Catholic, this opinion would probably get me in trouble. Who are we, humans, to be the ones whose lives have a purpose? Do elk have a purpose? What about puffer fish? Gnats? Ants? Buffalo? Bacteria? All of them exist with the sole purpose of reproducing. They don't give a shit about their accomplishments or their purpose or their greater calling. They get born, they find a mate, they mate, they die. We're the only ones to have "evolved" to a level where we decided that we should get to have a purpose. How dumb is that? Isn't the purpose that there is no purpose? Am I just going to repeat the previous paragraph if I start asking this question again?
I had all four of my grandparents alive until I was almost 30 years old. I was 29.5, but that's not an age where you get halves. It should be though, because half-years at that age can pack in a decade's worth of learning and living. Compare that to the final years of most people's lives - how much living gets done between 91 and 91.5 years old? Between 28 and 28.5 years old I went to a dozen countries. Between 2 and 2.5 years old I couldn't figure out that turning my cup upside down would make my milk fall out.
And you know what? None of it matters.
And that's OK. Because here we are. And that means this matters.
Go hug somebody.
My grandma, my dad's mom, died Tuesday. She was 93 + 4 months. Why is it that we only care about the partial years at the beginning and the end? The days in the middle count just as much, don't they? Arguably more, I'd say. I get it for babies - the difference between "I'm 2" and "I'm 2 and a half" is adding 25% more to your life. That's a big thing. But for old people - and 93 is pretty damn old - it's more of an accomplishment thing. No matter what, if I'd said she was 93, you'd think "that's old." But she didn't make it to 93.5, so I didn't want to say 93.5, as that's a milestone that she fell just short of. What I'm getting at is that this doesn't matter.
We (my brothers and my parents) were never as close with my dad's parents as we were with my mom's. My mom's mom is still alive - she's just over three months from being 94 - and doing pretty well. She's sharp as a tack mentally, but her body is understandably giving out. But we're not here to talk about her. My dad's parents were church-7-days-a-week Catholic for a few decades, and my parents didn't raise us Catholic. I don't know if that's what caused the divide, but there wasn't a lot of warm and fuzzies in the relationship. They were my grandparents, and I loved them because they were my dad's parents, but they weren't the candy-dish-in-the-kitchen-slip-you-a-$10-bill-and-give-you-an-extra-lavish-birthday-present kind of people, and that was extremely OK. They relaxed a little in their 80s, but were still not "fun" in the grandparent sense. Grandma did loosen up a bit more after grandpa died, which was a little bit funny, but it could have also been her brain giving out a little bit. What I'm getting at is that this doesn't matter either.
My grandma, since she's the one that died, is what I'm going to halfway talk about. She went through some stuff. My grandparents had 7 kids: my dad, his 3 brothers, their sister who had Down's Syndrome and died 3 years ago (not long after my grandpa, her father, died, though those are unrelated facts, I promise), their brother who died of electrocution around age 20, and their brother who died of SIDS. So maybe that explains why they didn't come off as the most free-wheeling, fun-loving pair. They went through some stuff. Of course, then after 65+ years of marriage, my grandpa died, which sent my grandma into an assisted living facility.
Also she had dementia for the last several years. She never lost her pleasant aura though, which helped. A lot. Though this doesn't matter either.
But I talked to my dad a couple of hours after she died. By the way, I don't really care about using "died" instead of "passed." We all know what we mean, so who are we kidding? Anyway, he was looking at a photo that she had in her little apartment/room in the facility (one that my dad had probably put there for her, after bringing it from her other room, where it was brought from her house) and it showed some of the generations beyond her. It was either her with her dad or her grandpa - my great or two great grandfathers. And my dad casually mused on how I obviously never knew them, and how he knew his own grandpa, but not his great grandpa. And in his dealing-with-death musing he just casually let slip "you get two generations and then nobody knows who you are anymore. You don't matter to anyone."
And he's not wrong. And he wasn't saying it to be negative. He was just thinking out loud. And I can't shake it. He's right, but is that bad? Doesn't it just mean that life doesn't need to have a meaning and that we should just enjoy what's happening? Doesn't it mean that stress and worries and pain are pointless to dwell on? Doesn't it mean to just be nice to people and they'll be nice to you and you can enjoy the ultimately minuscule amount of time we actually have here? Doesn't it mean that it doesn't mean anything? Isn't that terrifying? Isn't that freeing? Isn't that perfect? Isn't that a goddamned nightmare?
I don't know what the answer is, and maybe that's the point. There is no answer. There never has been and there probably shouldn't be. If we were raised Catholic, this opinion would probably get me in trouble. Who are we, humans, to be the ones whose lives have a purpose? Do elk have a purpose? What about puffer fish? Gnats? Ants? Buffalo? Bacteria? All of them exist with the sole purpose of reproducing. They don't give a shit about their accomplishments or their purpose or their greater calling. They get born, they find a mate, they mate, they die. We're the only ones to have "evolved" to a level where we decided that we should get to have a purpose. How dumb is that? Isn't the purpose that there is no purpose? Am I just going to repeat the previous paragraph if I start asking this question again?
I had all four of my grandparents alive until I was almost 30 years old. I was 29.5, but that's not an age where you get halves. It should be though, because half-years at that age can pack in a decade's worth of learning and living. Compare that to the final years of most people's lives - how much living gets done between 91 and 91.5 years old? Between 28 and 28.5 years old I went to a dozen countries. Between 2 and 2.5 years old I couldn't figure out that turning my cup upside down would make my milk fall out.
And you know what? None of it matters.
And that's OK. Because here we are. And that means this matters.
Go hug somebody.
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