When Grant first took this picture, I thought it was funny.  Yeah I thought, to risk is to live fully.  That’s what it means, right?  To not watch from the sidelines. To live fully is fun. Yes there is risk in action, participation and trying new vistas in life, but that doesn’t mean inappropriate risk or foolish choices. It means to take a chance at something new and different and outside current knowledge and comforts. And for Grant, he’s got more skill than average.  He’s far more capable in any situation with anything. 

Now I look at this picture and think, “What an idiot.”  I know, it’s harsh. He deserves it though. I know he didn’t mean to die.  Of course he didn’t.  Yet, I can’t help but connect the mentality with the outcome.  It’s now the outcome’s consequences that I live daily.  I supported him doing what he did.  I believed in him.  He was a cautious risk taker.  And he had superhuman ability. 

He could defy common outcomes with uncommon ability.  I saw it time and time again, so did he.  A close call here, extra danger there, he always knew right what to do.  It seemed as if he could defy death.  He thought so.  He believed it.  There was evidence that his ability was extraordinary.  He worked to be the best at everything he did.  And he was.  So he believed he was indestructible.  He really did.  He could fly, so he could defy the laws of gravity.  Over and over he did it.  So it must be true, this is how we lived.

It was a lie.  A lie he believed so fully it was as if it were truth.  It was his truth. I believed in it too.  I believed his lie.  Never once did I worry about Grant out flying.  He was after all, indestructible.  So he’d go out as if he were going out for a simple walk.  That’s how his skill would compare to the average person.  His ability made flying feel as easy as a walk in the park.  That flight out of the park, it was his last.  The one that gifted us both with the truth. The one that uncovered the lie that we both lived.

 No one is indestructible.  No one is above the laws of gravity.  What goes up, must come down. How that transpires is the risk involved in any such experience. The elements are no respecter of persons.  Not even you Grant.  If only we’d realized that as truth before it was too late.   Why didn’t I?  Why didn’t you?

 Two weeks before he died, we were at the park watching him in the air.  A mother, like myself, watching him up so high in the sky and asked, “Doesn’t that make you nervous?  What if something were to happen?” I didn’t think like that.  I don’t worry about what ifs.  It’s a waste of time to expend your precious energy on something that doesn’t exist yet.  Plan and prepare sure.  We did that, we were prepared; but then you gotta just let it go and live life.  I told her, ”No, I never worry about him.” 

“He’s so safe,” I said.   “He does everything right, he’s cautious, and he loves it.”  I love that he loves it. I want him to love what he does, so I support him.  He’s adventurous and that is who he is.  If he couldn’t be him, I wouldn’t love him the way I do.  That’s how we live, not in fear.  Besides, if it’s his time to go, it’s his time.  I really believed that.  And, I continued, “He’d die doing what he loves.  How amazing would that be?”  That seemed beautiful.  That’s what I said in that moment.  The two weeks before his death. 

Yeah, it is a beautiful thought, a theory people believe is a great way to live, but that’s when it’s not your reality. The reality of your loved one dying early, doing what he loved, is little comfort. My mourning tears are not beautiful, nor my children’s. His broken body was not beautiful. A funeral is never described as beautiful. The fallout in all areas of life are not beautiful. The struggles aren’t either. It’s irony to all things beautiful. Sure beauty can be created from all these, but the ‘dying doing what you love’ isn’t beautiful. How we deal and interact with it can become beautiful depending on how we act. So it’s our actions that make a circumstance beautiful.

I said that, believing it fully and knowing that would never happen to Grant.  Like I said, he was indestructible.   I had no concept of the possibility that he could get hurt.  None.  It’s a lie, he was destructible.  I don’t believe it was his time to go while he was doing what he loved.  Nope.  It wasn’t. He was destructible and finally pushed to the limit. He had 4 little boys.  His place is with them.  Raising them.  Being a dad.  Not thrill seeking, risk taking.  That’s why it wasn’t his time to go. 

Yet, he died doing what he loved.  Yes, I do think that’s beautiful.  It’s a beautiful thought that now enrages me. He shouldn’t have died.  He shouldn’t have been out that night.  If he hadn’t then I could have gone on believing in these lies that WE were indestructible. 

Grant lived without boundaries.  He did push them till they expanded into what was possible.  He didn’t accept the norm.  If someone said something couldn’t be done, he didn’t believe it.  He saw it as a challenge.  Challenge it he did, and then proved it was possible.  Over and over he saw what seemingly wasn’t possible, become possible when he touched it.  It was a gift. 

You know, those people who seem to be naturally good at everything they do.  He was.  The part people don’t realize is that he did it with tireless effort and so much dedicated time and work to make it all happen.  In work and play, he was 110%.  More than the average.  Much more.  And so his results were more than average, much more, but he obviously found his boundaries.

There is an element of beauty in everything.  Because he lived so fully he died.   How would it feel to live so fully it killed you?  How would it feel to live so small you died a little each day because you didn’t dare to live fully?  Which is worse?  To live fully and die?  Or to die because you couldn’t live.  In the end, the result is the same. 

Is it possible to find a balance?  That’s what I’m discovering the answer to now.  I won’t live in the lie anymore, I can’t.  I am destructible.  I see my vulnerability.  I respect it.  I also won’t live in fear.  I won’t let fear take away my freedom and miss out on living life fully.  It’s a balance.  The balance is to find yours without killing yourself for it, and living fully in it.