life, death, and 991's

death is inevitable, yet i think my friends and family and i are all invincible. i didn't know walker best, but his sudden death has been thought provoking. i had trouble falling asleep the other night thinking about how life is so fragile and can be over in the blink of an eye. sometimes we see it coming; sometimes we don't. either way, it's abruptly definitive. it interrupts life - not only the one lost, but the lives of surrounding people. and its effects can often times be felt long after the loss occurs.

last summer i was in the room when grandad took his last breath. being in the presence of death definitely has a lasting impact. he was well into his 80's, so it wasn't too much of a shock; however, he went into the hospital for stomach pains and never left. his heart was simply exhausted. after all that it had been through, i guess it was understandable: fighting in a world war, falling in love, running a successful business, raising 2 children, spoiling 5 grandchildren, watching his son experience a divorce and a coming out, and living a year and a half without his wife. he had lived a full life, good and bad.

my favorite thing about grandad is that he never gave up. he never stopped doing the things that made him happy. my senior year of college we began a weekly tradition of writing handwritten letters to each other. i'd fill him in on my exciting life in college station, and he would offer me sporadic words of wisdom and tell me what he did to fill his days without gram. he would spread out his errands so that he could take the car out every day, he made friends everywhere he went, including the staff at the walmart pharmacy, and he even played golf until his legs started to give out in his last year. minus his thoughtful efforts to make things easier on his family, grandad never lived life as though he was going to die, even at the end. my favorite piece of evidence to this fact is the pair of new balance 991's he bought only months before his death. he absolutely loved those shoes, and we used to laugh about how we matched despite the generation gap.

the following week mom and i were cleaning out grandad's apartment. we were able to get rid of most of it, but mom held onto the family photographs and his world war II mementos. she asked me if i wanted anything, and i told her that i wanted his shoes. she gave me a weird look at first, but i explained to her how they were a symbol of his youthful persistence, his joie de vivre.

life is meant to be lived. to say it doesn't matter is comparable to telling me in high school that basketball was "just a game". i hated when people said that. if i would have treated it as such, maybe i would have saved myself injury, sweat, frustration, tears, anger, cursing, and endless hours in the gym. but what i gained from pouring my heart into it and working my ass off was indescribably rich and worth every second of it, win or lose. i think the same goes with life: you could just sit back and watch it pass you by because you think it's just a game. or you can work to get better - to love better, to work better, to understand better, to live better. on the flip side, we can't hold too tightly to things on this earth because, as the death of someone close to you will quickly teach you, they simply don't last.

there has to be some kind of balance between the two. and for the rest of my life, there will be a rather large pair of 991's in the top of my closet to remind me to pursue finding it.