This Stoic motto has found a renewed interest in today's culture. The interest comes from a place less about death and more about seeking a more meaningful life.
The following most likely will come across as ramblings, but that is the best I can offer on the connected topics of life, death, love, and grief.
Personally over the last year, Death and I have faced each other intimately with intensity. My wife of nearly twenty-five years unexpectedly passed away in May of 2022. So Death has hit me hard this past year. Every moment of every day, I remember death and felt the sting of death beyond comprehension, beyond explanation.
I know Death so personally that I want to forget Death. But forgetting Death is not an option. If I was to forget Death, I would not only ignore the reality of this mortal coil of our earthly existence, I would forget the value of life to its fullest. That is, to remember death is to appreciate life and to see every moment of every day as a blessing with purpose.
Memes abound on social media on so many topics, including death and grief. I have found comfort in some of these inspirational sayings but I have come to realize my need for the inspiration of people closest to me in my daily living. I need intimacy in my life and this is only possible by being vulnerable to one whom God brings to me as gift. This is a struggle for me.
I deeply desire and need intimacy. This is part of the essence of who I am. I know and believe that God calls me to be husband, again. However, the closer I grow in love with another woman, the greater the risk of the pain and suffering that I have already experienced once. The severity of the pain I have in grief is due to greatness of love Brandi and I shared as husband and wife.
Furthermore, I find myself in a rare situation. Most single men at my age are single either because they never married or their marriage ended in divorce. So for most of these single men, the potential first or next wife is not concerned about the other woman because either there was no other one or the other woman is at best the mother of the children. I realize this is an oversimplification or perhaps unfair stereotype. I mean no offense to any single man or single woman. My point is this: the end of my marriage had absolutely nothing to do with my choices nor my behavior.
Though my marriage was far from perfect, we had a really good marriage. In fact, our marriage was getting better than ever a few months before Brandi passed away. Brandi and I loved each other faithfully and unconditionally. We were committed to loving one another for the rest of our lives. That commitment was a daily choice we made to one another in sickness and in health, in good times and in bad.
Yet I cannot deny who I am nor God's calling in my life. I cannot imagine what a woman feels, let alone a single woman whose previous marriage ended in divorce who dates a single man who is now a widower. The dynamics is unique and not easy to navigate. There will always be another woman whom the widower loved to his fullest.
Yet I know for me personally, God has given my heart a capacity to love beyond what I thought ever possible. I am a one woman kind of guy, yet I will never stop loving Brandi. Somehow God expanded my heart to hold this incredible gift of love for two women with faithfulness and fidelity. I just pray that God brings forth a woman whose heart can love the man I am, a man who remembers death because in doing so I hold onto the life and love I had with Brandi.
In this process of grief, I have learned:
1. Life and love are to be cherished. We should always be grateful for every moment we can spend with those who choose to walk with us.
2. Time is limited. Death does come like a thief in the night. So we need to spend our time together intentionally and without fear.
3. Our earthly life is one of perpetual healing. Yes, each moment of each day moves us closer to our last. However, each of us has a choice on the perspective we take. You can fear death knowing the inevitable ends approaches or you can enjoy life knowing that we continually heal from the growing pains of loving life to the fullness. The choice is clear, though never easy. I choose memento mori.
