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Maudlin or Maude
There aren't too many young people like the titular protagonist of Harold and Maude who spends his privileged youth obsessed with death … attending funerals and feigning suicide. I do remember in elementary school being terrified by those “duck and cover” drills at school. I would look out my bedroom window at night, wondering when they (and I was never quite sure who they were) were going to drop the big one. Of course, I didn’t see the lunacy of having these thoughts in a small town near Utica, N.Y., obviously not the epicenter of the Cold War nor a high priority for them.
So what is it about reaching a certain age…I’ll be 47 next week…that is making me ponder mortality more frequently and intensely than ever before. In my completely non-scientific opinion based solely on my own experiences, I think that we face our own mortality at a few key points in our lives:
The first time a peer dies, which for most people seems to be a high school classmate killed in a car wreck.
When you hold your first baby in our arms and your natural maternal instincts kick in making you fiercely protective and worried about your own death leaving that innocent child to grow up without you.
When you start going to more visitations and funerals than weddings and baby showers.
For me, that last one has been hitting much too close to home and much more frequently than I could ever have imagined. My friends and I are too well-versed in the patois of chemotherapy and the meanings of the various stages of cancer. We are less concerned about our husbands throwing their dirty laundry on the floor and more concerned about them dying, leaving us behind to struggle with what remains and make other plans for our older years when we were going to golf more, work less, travel more and spend more time together.
I guess my age puts me about halfway between the ages of morbid Harold and life-loving Maude. I spend little time focusing on my own death or contemplations of the after-life. What absorbs my focus is what is left behind. My random and inane thoughts include:
* Will our shrinking newspapers continue to wither, leaving the world to get their news from overdone, pouffy-haired news babes?
* Will I be the last one, on my death bed, clutching my Chicago Manual of Style and whispering, “Who?” when my kids say, “Me and so-and-so…” prompting their auto-response mechanism to kick in and utter, “So-and-so and I…”
* Will my kids remember the hours and hours we spent sitting on my bed reading chapter books or the many months I spent in my bed struggling to overcome my debilitating depression? (Click here to read more about this topic, since I desperately hope that my experiences and candor will help others get help quicker and realize that there is no shame in depression.)
Will my husband be able to figure out how all the bills are paid, where our money is and how to get some if he needs it? I have actually sent my best friend a copy of all of our account numbers, login names and passwords, just in case. Who will fill out forms for him? The man has not filled out a form in almost 18 years!
I wish someone could give me the secret to being less maudlin and more Maude-ian, willing to stare death in the face with a smirk and celebrate every moment of living. For now, I would just settle for a few months with no events to prompt all of these thoughts.
Diane appears Wednesdays on TriangleMom2Mom. Read more about Di on her blog Live and Let Di.
Live and Let Di
Diane is a TriangleMom2Mom featured blogger, appearing every Wednesday.
I try to be the voice of Moms with teens. My daughter Haley is 16. She's at that age where she is convinced that I know nothing. I'm thinking I'll seem a lot smarter when she's 22. We bond over Broadway shows. My son Rory is 13. He started reading the sports page when he was 5 and his passion for anything sports-related has grown ever since. This year he beat out 9 guys in their 40s to win his Fantasy Football League. Watch for him on ESPN in a few years.
My husband Hurley works from home, but travels quite a bit. When he's gone, I usually take a break from making dinner and cleaning the house. Oh, I don't do those things regularly when he's here either! Our parenting philosophy is "choose your battles." The only problem is that we often choose different battles. It keeps it interesting!!!
Comments
...I am also a lover of the great Chicago Manual of Style! I wish I could download a copy into my brain :)
I appreciate this post because it helps remind me that we're all in this, being human, together, and it's always helpful to know that you are not alone.
I never know if people come back to read my responses to their comments...I hope they do. As for the Chicago Manual of Style, I found out that you can get an on-line subscription for a fee...I used it last year when I was editing a long and terribly technical book. It's much easier to search on-line than try to figure out how they would categorize your question in the index!
Great post! For me, one of the times I faced my own mortality when my last grandparent died a few years ago. And then last year when the first one of my friends in my age group lost one of their parents. And since then I have attended the funerals of two more friends parents. It was a wierd shift for me.
I think by the time you are in your 40's, you have seen enough bad in life. You feel fortunate just to have made it this far and begin to take nothing for granted.
You've seen friends who have passed on after a horrible illness and who never got to see their 35th birthday (or the Red Sox winning a World Series). Cranial anerysms that have resulted in severe hemiplegia (in a 23 yr old). Mental illness that seems to come out of nowhere. You realize that anything could happen, it all seems so random. One can be physically fit, a wonderful & caring person, devout, wealthy (or not), educated (or not)... And any of this could happen to your husband or kids. You realize that getting old is The Best Scenario.
*sigh* I will now sit in a dark room and rock myself. Actually, it's beautifully sunny out and I think I'll get out for a run instead! Life is too short to sit in the dark.
(P.S. I was feeling old when I turned 47. My husband said: "Cheer up! You are closer to age 2, than you are to 100!")
A girlfriend and I were just reflecting on the fact that it seemed like just yesterday we were all bringing each other casseroles for new babies...now it's been a steady stream for parents dying. I''ve personally been struggling with the fact that we are losing the "matriarchs" and "patricarchs" in our family, and roles are shifting, and our generation is starting to host the holidays, keep the archives, and send money for graduations........I think about the fact that there are still days that I just want my "mommy" and now it's my job to BE the mommy. The pressure of being the one to set the example and give the advice is a bit of a struggle for me too, because honestly I still feel like I'm 25 inside! I'm really trying to work on being the grown-up!!
Lillybug, You are so right. It was when I was making a cassarole that the reality of friend's parents dying hit me.
I recently read a book called the Middle Place. The title was from the fact there is a short period in your life where you are in the middle place of being both someone's child and a parent yourself. While reading the book, it hit me that I wouldn't always be in the middle place. I had never thought about life that way - the part where you are just someone child, the part where you are someone's child and a parent and the part where you are just a parent to someone.
That book is actually on my list to read!!
Lillybug, I really liked the book. I actually read it in one sitting on an airplane ride from Miami to Arizona. I really like the tone and the style of writing. The subject matter - cancer - is tough, but the author makes it uplifting in a non sappy way.
I feel like the author wrote another book that is also on my "list".......
Did you ever see the video on youtube of the author reading a letter to all of her friends? If not, you have to google it, it will make you laugh and cry outloud.......
I worry about the same thing --- my husband being able to make the house function if I go first! And don't even mention bills...I am sure they will all be overdue, phones turned off, etc.
I used to say that if I died he would be remarried before the laundry needed to be done, but he now does laundry if I am away, much to my surprise.
J