do not go gentleshould not constitute occasions for sadness but realities for awareness, so that one may be happy in the interim.
- Percy Bysshe Shelley
I've noticed a pattern in my life.
Every half-decade or so, a period of time comes along that reminds me of the reasons why I learned to find joy in small, simple things in the first place, of why I demand so vehemently that people appreciate and love life and its experiences in all their iterations. I found the stubbornness, the determination, and the refusal to give up that serve me so well because of times like these when things became so hard that I not only started to lose hope, but to lose myself.
The last few months mark the first time period in nearly five years when I've looked at my life and wondered why I bother keeping my head above water. I can say without hyperbole or exaggeration of any kind that I had nearly three solid months without more than a day or two's worth of respite. The loss of the longest relationship of my life, a physically and mentally crippling illness, my grandfather's months-long decline in health that ended in death a week ago, the most intellectually challenging academic work I've ever faced in the form of a conference project that my professor stated was more than likely impossible on top of the burden of an advanced Biology course, further exacerbated by weeks of incapacitation that set me back nearly a month, financial issues, problems in the lives of the people I love most, financial issues, and a number of smaller, day-to-day stressors all decided to darken my doorstep in very quick, often overlapping succession, and more often than not I found myself doubting if I could make it through. It was more than the usual doubt when things get rough, it was genuine fear that my mind or my body would give out, and I am a bit ashamed to admit that the former very nearly happened on a few occasions in November and December.
I don't know if I'm out of the woods yet. I can certainly hope that I've seen the worst, but it seems likely that I haven't. Even if things improve from here, the cycle will come back around again. People I love will leave my life, by my own choice or not. People will shift and change and grow apart. People will die. Pain and suffering and misery, often without any sort of rhyme or reason, will come and go, come and stay for a while, or come and try to set up permanent residence; this is, quite simply, the way of the world.
It isn't enough to just preach hope, optimism, and love of life when things are good, or at the very least stable.
I have no delusions about the world being a good, happy, wonderful place full of sunshine, roses, and fluffy kittens. It isn't. But it's the only world I've got, and this is the only life I'll ever live as the person I am.
and whether that life is worth living or not, as long as there is breath in my body, I am not going to give up.
My Grandpa Bill was one hell of a human being.
He lived for ninety-six years, three months, and twenty-nine days.
His youngest son Ritchie was born with a hole in his heart, and died twice before he was ten. My grandfather lived every single day of that child's first sixteen years of life knowing that day could be Ritchie's last. Whether it was by determination on Ritchie's part, Bill's part, or some combination of the two, Ritchie survived until the surgery that could save his life was pioneered. His life expectancy, set with incredible optimism at 35, more than doubled - he's lived for sixty-two years, and is still going strong. When he was forty, Ritchie's girlfriend of more than seven years became pregnant. Seven months later, they were married, and two months after that, the couple's first and only daughter was born. Me.
he lived to see the death of the woman he'd loved for nearly forty years and sat beside her, helpless despite his profound medical skills, as she succumbed to the cancer in her lungs.
a few years later, his only daughter - beautiful and brilliant - died of a drug overdose at the age of thirty-two. He outlived her by twenty-six years.
He was a general practitioner and surgeon for nearly fifty years. During that time, he founded a hospital, identified the bacterium that caused giardia, was one of the only people to ever successfully treat and cure spinal meningitis, invented the respiratory spray delivery system for influenza vaccine, and saved tens of thousands of lives (many of those patients didn't have the money for the treatment and procedures that saved them, so he adopted a policy of accepting pies and homegrown produce as payment). When I visited him in August he could still recall the details of every case in his room full of file cabinets.
He died without recognition for the majority of his accomplishments. His research was stolen by others, or simply passed over, and his name will not go down in history in the annals of medicine.
He spent much of his life miserable.
and he never gave up. Ever. He was determined to the last to make his world and his life worth living, and when they weren't the cantankerous, stubborn old cuss kept going, anyway.
I can think of no better way to honor his memory than to simply live my life as best I can and face the world with all the strength I have, whether it's enough or not. Like him, I will make mistakes. I will not always be proud of the person I am. I will not always succeed. I will be bitter, sometimes. I will have flaws.
But I will live.
and, God willing, I will accomplish half as much and live half as much as he did in my years on this earth, however many lie before me.
I can think of no better conclusion to this entry than the poem I recited under my breath the last time I saw Grandpa Bill over Thanksgiving (which my favorite professor, in a coincidence I very much enjoyed, sent to me a few days ago upon hearing of my grandfather's death).
Do not go gentle into that good night,
old age should burn and rave at close of day;
rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Though wise men at the end know dark is right;
because their words had forked no lightning they
do not go gentle into that good night.
Good men, the last wave by, crying how bright
their frail deeds might have danced in a green bay,
rage, rage against the dying of the light.
Wild men who caught and sang the sun in flight,
and learn, too late, they grieved it on its way,
do not go gentle into that good night.
Grave men, near death, who see with blinding sight
blind eyes could blaze like meteors and be gay
rage, rage against the dying of the light.
and you, my father, there on the sad height,
curse, bless, men now with your fierce tears, I pray.
Do not go gentle into that good night;
rage, rage against the dying of the light."
- Dylan Thomas
In memory of William Albert Phillips.
August 21, 1913 - December 20, 2009
May you find whatever Heaven you hoped for, or simple darkness and peace, if that was your wish.
I love you for always.
Emotional
Tired
Sweet recharging - dream of the quantum singularities we'll create together.
Triumph
Neutral
Lazy
