"
"Impermanence
Ξ August 30th, 2008 | → | ∇ General, Philosophy |
On Tuesday, I attended a memorial service for Emma Hutchinson, the younger daughter of my favorite professor. I met her when she was 7, and wondered how she would turn out, growing up in such a wild environment full of college kids and all their rambunctious excesses. She spent more than half her life on campus at Rice. And the 700+ people who attended (some of them from New York, Chicago, Wyoming, and London — on 3 days’ to 8 hours’ notice) are testament to the way she and her parents have lived their lives. Students from before and after my time spoke at the service, as did Dr. Hutchinson and Ashlyn, Emma’s older sister.
Throughout all their words, I heard a constant thread which was: She lived her life well despite the odds when she started. Do everything, do it well, and do it a lot.
Ashlyn said that she had prepared for this moment from when she was seven, and learned that Emma was born minus a kidney. And after twenty years of readiness, what can one say that hasn’t already been said? She was just glad that Emma got to go to college, graduate, see Ashlyn’s wedding just two months prior, and, trivial as it sounds, finish the Harry Potter series. Ashlyn said she’s always found inspiration to keep going in Emma’s attitude: In 20 years, Emma went to and spent more time in hospital than most people go on holiday. But she was always upbeat, using all the time she was granted to surf, ski, help her friends with homework in college, watch the Simpsons religiously, and on and on. To Emma, every moment was an opportunity. Ashlyn concluded that, now that Emma can’t do these and other things, Ashlyn will do them, in part, for Emma. She’s terribly slow going up the Colorado trails — she’s always the last one to finish. But she will finish them, for herself and for Emma. Ashlyn’s hope was that everyone who’s ever known Emma would use her memory as a positive source of motivation to do and be a little more than they started out, each and every day of their lives. My synopsis may sound as though we who are left behind will live the rest of our lives under a cloud of unworthiness, but that’s not at all the meaning intended or learned from Tuesday’s service.
Hutch said that Ashlyn and the others had already touched on many of his biggest points. He thanked everyone who had ever known Emma, and all the doctors who had given years of their time to her; he appreciated how the doctors had treated Emma seriously, talking to her as an adult from the very beginning. Then he talked about how he became greedy, wishing for just a few more hours with her when she was born, then a few weeks, then months and years. Finally, he realized that he needed to enjoy what he did have. It’s okay to be greedy, to say, “Well, at least we had that. At least she had that.” Or “I wish we could see another year together.” But it’s equally and perhaps more important to say, “This moment, right now, is wonderful.”
In 2002, I went to Vietnam for a research trip. In Hanoi, my great aunt Tam took us around and showed us how to haggle like a local. She was an energetic old lady, bubbling over with conversation and nosy questions. :)She came to Houston last year, and seemed as vital as ever if a bit grayer on top.
About two months ago we heard that she’d had a stroke and was in hospital, unresponsive to any communication.
Today, I took my mother to the airport for a flight to Chicago, where my remaining grandfather also lies oblivious, at my aunt’s house, without the energy to eat these past three days. She called and told my father that my grandfather lies there, looking at her or anyone who comes in the room. He doesn’t give a sign that he knows who she is, where he is, or what’s happening.
I dropped in to see how my little sister was coming along on her homework, and looked up at the wall. There we’ve hung a framed painting on a ceramic mat. Ba Tam gave it to me in 2002, to convey to my parents with her compliments and best wishes. It depicts in abstract style a quaint street in one of Hanoi’s older sections, a holdover from the French colonial days. It’s competently executed, though it never really grabbed my attention. The painting was probably worth about $7-15 USD at the time.
Even then, I realized it was the thought, the effort — on the parts of both the artist and my great aunt — that mattered, more than any sum of money can ever capture.
These are just some of the thoughts that cross my mind this balmy summer afternoon.
Where does the time go, and to what end do we live out all our days, hours, minutes, and seconds?
As these fellows write about John Allison, it’s the simple joys, the unlooked-for successes and foregone failures in his characters’ lives that appeal to us. And so it is with the characters in our lives as well.
These past three-plus months have been filled and stuffed with work in half a dozen flavors, like some ghastly turducken from the bowels of holiday hell. The various duties I’m called on to carry out include project management, finance, client / employee / vendor relations, research for due diligence, and a little hard labor. I enjoy everything tremendously, the hard labor perhaps most of all because it’s a nice physical break from paper-pushing. I feel like I turned some unseen corner in May, and by June I was rocking it 14 hrs / day. Juggling two-plus jobs requires a lot of rapid gear changes, and constantly. But I’m more than competent, I’m on top of it all. Every week poses new challenges. Every day I see my MBA working at capacity for me. Hell, I’ve even had to pull out my old Stat and Accounting books that I vowed to never crack again ere the hosts of Heaven and Hell assembled. And I liked it.
And maybe I could happily define my worth by my work because it is worthwhile in so many ways. But I shouldn’t and won’t.
Because the only real success I’ll count is if, when it’s my turn to lie somewhere (a ditch, a hospice) in a coma, someone remembers me fondly and thinks on what meaning he can bring to his own life.
In a world of 6+ billion people, the sun casts no doubtful shadows — there is nothing new left for us and those who will come after us. That doesn’t matter. Winning and losing often don’t matter either. The only thing that matters in the end is that *we* do. Something. Anything. Learn, grow, change, adapt, and savor the doing of it.
That was a lot of fluff and window-dressing, but there it is. Live well, leave no regrets, and trust that you’ll inspire something in those you leave behind.
I’ll catch up on lesser things later, like what I’ve been spending 60-70 hrs / week of my life on these past some-odd months.
on September 2nd, 2008 at 8:43 pm
THERE’S the word! Inspire. That’s what I was waiting for you to get to.
Sorry I haven’t called you back. I’ll try to fix that soon.
on September 3rd, 2008 at 1:24 pm
Working hard is rewarding - not only financially but also psycologically. The sense of personal pride in accomplishment makes the hours worth it, especially when you are too busy to worry about where the time has gone.
One day, moping around in self pity will be a mental impossibility… At least that’s what I hear.
Keep workin your ass off. Manda and I are proud.