He Died Doing What He Loved

I remember we got so many sympathy cards the week Grant died.  It’s a beautiful thing for someone to send a card, but in the wake of the death of your husband with 4 small children still around, alive and now without dad; the last thing you want is any mail to open.  Every letter, every card is a reminder of what just happened.  Please don’t remind me.  Please don’t give me a card.  It hurts to open it.

After a year I could have handled a card.  In fact I would have loved a card.  Someone that’s still there.  Someone who’s still thinking of me. After a year, when you’ve gotten on with your life as normal as it is, that’s a good time for a card.  To me, even though it’s over a year later, it still feels like yesterday. My husband died, maybe saying it one more time will finally make it normal in some way. I don’t have any semblance of life, but I’ve accepted it finally as reality. I’ve been through all the “firsts” as they say and I’m just a little less shocked is all.

If I got a card in the mail at this point, I’d smile.  That week, I couldn’t even open them let alone read them.  I did manage to open a few. I had to stop.  I put them all in a pink gift bag and put the pink gift bag in the closet.  One of the cards I remember getting was from a fellow paraglider.  It was from someone who understood his love and passion for the sport.  He wrote in that card, “I hope it brings some comfort knowing that Grant died doing what he loved.”

Oh yes, I thought, he sure did.  What an example to all of us of how to live life fully, to live fully till the very last second of your life.  What an amazing human.  He lived without fear.  He lived big.  He had that special sauce that made his life truly special. He was amazing in ways no one else was, it’s what brought awe to his life’s audience, meaning anyone who was ever around him.

He seemed to do it all and he showed us that in his death.  What a man! sad and proud for just a few moments. I put the card back in the pink gift bag and stopped opening up cards.  I couldn’t read anymore.  That was enough.  I moved that pink gift bag from the house Grant died in, to the house Grant lived in. I then moved it to the new house I bought for me and my children. Every time I looked at that bag full of unopened cards I’d sigh and set it aside again.

Eighteen months after he’s been gone and I’ve got most of the boxes from our move unpacked now.  I saw the pink gift bag.  What’s in here I wondered?  I looked in and remembered.  Cards.  I opened one.  It was full of so much love with words of grace and comfort.  Thank you I thought silently to that person.

I was smiling now as I thought of the person who sent it.  A comfort I could now embrace with love and acceptance.  Now the cards were about who sent them, not Grant.  Now I can smile when I read them.  Now they feel good to open up, like a gift I forgot about and suddenly found.  One after another I opened them, read, and smiled.

Then I got to the card I’d already read.  The one that said, “Grant died doing what he loved.”  I caught my breath at the words, “died doing what he loved.”  Indignation filled my lungs, I could hardly breathe.  He did die for what he loved!  He showed me and the world just what he loved because he died for it.  It wasn’t me he died for.  It wasn’t our family he died for.  He died for paragliding.  What a ridiculous cause.  What a waste.  What a pathetic show of affection for an inanimate object that means nothing and you DIED for this?!?!

“How could you?!  Was it worth it,” I screamed out to Grant!  I felt a heavy sadness come over me, a remorse beyond human feeling.   A darkness of it he communicated to me, “No, it wasn’t worth it.  I went on, “Is your precious paraglider taking care of you now?  Are you happy you left your family for the cause of what YOU loved?  What YOU wanted, thinking nothing of anyone else but yourself!  You showed me what you loved in your death!  You showed me where your priorities were.  You sealed it with your blood.”

The regret settled in.  I felt his sadness.  “It’s true, it’s all true and I’m sorry,” he said.  “Sorry doesn’t change anything for me,” I replied.  It’s done and it’s irreversible.  I turned my head from the side I felt him on.   His spirit felt more mature now, more understanding, more accepting, and tragically remorseful in the helpless situation he’d created for himself.

“I can’t,” I said.  “Go.”  He left.  I was alone again in my anger.  After 18 months I thought I could finally read the cards.  I could and did till I got to that one, the one that was about Grant.  It triggered me and I let it.  I wanted to feel it. The same card with the same words I saw as beautiful the first time I read it. 

I’m a different person the second time I read it.  I’m more honest with life.  I’m less naïve about life.  I feel truth so deep in my body I can’t deny it.  I don’t feel honor for dishonor disguised.  I don’t cover up the wrong of it with, it’s ok.  I see the lies.  I’m learning to be pure, true to myself, and this wasn’t dying doing what you loved.  This was dying tragically for naught.

When I read this the second time, it didn’t feel like Grant was honoring anything.  It felt like a platitude to cover up the stupidity.  After living with the consequences of Grant’s choice to pursue what HE loved at any cost; it doesn’t give me any comfort to know he died doing what he loved.  He died because he chose to face dangers he thought he was more able to handle than was true and he was proved wrong.

I’m grateful for this new perspective because I don’t want to believe anything that’s not true ever again.  And just because something is true, doesn’t mean it's ok.  The truth will set you free. The freedom to be and to know and to live what truly is. There is a peace that can only be gleaned through knowing both sides of truth, from remembering that what is truth for you now may and probably will change. 

I saw the first truth in the shock for it was true too. The second truth is in the anger.  There’s always more than one part to every truth.  Now I know how to find it and all the parts that accompany it. I calmed down and felt grateful to see another side. 

Maybe 18 months from now I’ll read it again and discover another truth.  So, thank you for the card.  The one you sent the week he died and the one I got 18 months after he died.   Your cards all mean something beautiful and give me something beautiful, every time.