Wednesday, May 3, 2023
What About My Books?
What about my shirts and sweaters and shoes? What about the silverware and CDs and pens and power cords that have birthed babies over the years or the bed that Amy and Gary Kohlhepp said I could keep if I moved out of their basement?
Thursday, December 31, 2020
Goodbye, Jack
What happens to one’s wisdom and experiences when one dies?
I know we touch and teach people and leave marks of various
degrees and help shape others and live on in the hearts of our families and all
that, but when someone lives a long time, that person accumulates a great deal
of knowledge. Unless he or she writes a book or becomes famous, is that all wasted,
just lost, when the person leaves?
I ask because my 83-year-old dad died on Christmas – 72 days
after my 80-year-old mom died alone in a regional hospital in Spalding County,
Georgia, gasping for air – and I’m afraid. All the people he knew and music he
liked and lessons he learned and experiences he had and achievements he amassed
and wisdom he gained from eight decades of life – are they just lost with him?
He didn’t write any books or give any TED Talks; he touched many people but
memories fade and life goes on and I just feel right now like the list of reasons
why this was such an indescribable loss not just to me and his other loved ones
but to the universe is immeasurably long.
Yes, he left the world a better place. Yes, he loved and was
loved, and he was smart and compassionate and strong and interesting and
charming and patient and talented and generous. He was multi-faceted and caring
and unselfish and genuine and wonderful. He taught me so much about so much. But
who’s gonna know this when there’s no Wikipedia page, no statue in a park, no offspring
to keep his memory alive ‘cause we’ll be gone at some point too? Who’s going to
be aware of all that Jack Diehl knew and saw and learned and was? Blog posts
and framed photos don’t convey this.
Everyone dies, I know. And so many people have been lost to Covid.
It’s overwhelming, though, to everyone left behind. Because not only do we suffer
the immediate, up-close loss of our loved ones – their empty chairs at our dinner
tables, their laughs no longer filling our rooms – but collectively we suffer
the loss of all that each of them was, all they knew and offered and
represented in the bigger scheme of things.
I don’t even know if what I’m writing makes any sense. But it
doesn’t make sense to me how someone can live for decades – learning and loving
and being and giving – and then just leave one day for good.
There are no buildings with Jack’s name on them, no charitable
foundations dedicated to preserving his memory. But he deserved this and so
much more. I’m sad that someday no one will know this.
And I’m devastated by how much we’ve lost.