Tough Week–Some Thoughts

It’s been a tough week in our world.  Not tough in a geopolitical sense, but in an emotional sense.  Tough weeks are things that one goes through in life, as they are a part of life.  There is no perfectly smooth, effortless glide through this world, with rainbows and Skittles for everyone.  That’s not the deal we get from Life. 

At best, life is a gift we get every morning when we get up.  How we make the most of that gift, every day, is how we define a life.  Little joy nuggets and little sorrow droplets amongst the compost of phone calls, interactions, bumping into furniture, email, lunch and the occasional coffee with the insistent, grinding background screech of what we call our society and our civilization. 

Finding those little nuggets of joy and happiness are what makes life worthwhile. 

Unfortunately, sometime the droplets of sorrow outnumber the joys and make for a tough week.  We lost four people this week, none of whom were especially close family or friends.  Two were colleagues from the workplace, one from long ago in television, one from the IT career.  Knew them both well enough to share a coffee with, knew a bit about them as people, not just anonymous faces on the floor.  Neither were ill, that I knew of, they just died.  The third was an aunt, in a far away city, whom I remember fondly, who passed at a ripe old age.  The fourth was the wife of a close colleague, who had been ill for a number of years, bravely battling and finally losing her fight with cancer. 

Where it becomes a tough week is how you feel.  There was a quote long ago that I can’t find the attribution for. 

The quote is this:  It is not for the dead that I grieve, but for the living that I bereave.

It sums up how one might approach this very touchy subject of death.  Those who have died are beyond our care now, those left behind are the ones that deserve our sympathy and what comfort we can offer them.  About all one can say to someone is that you are sorry for their loss.  There are no magical words that can help take away the sorrow for those left behind. 

I can’t make it better right now for the families and close friends of Michel, Billy, Joyce and Chantal, but I can offer them this observation. 

Those that are gone are still in your memories and your heart and it’s very sad now.  Eventually, you get up, embrace the gift you have and go hunting for the nuggets of joy.  You’ll find them.