On grief, attention, and appreciating what’s here while we can.
The last few months have been filled with a lot of loss in the One You Feed universe.
A good friend of mine lost his son shockingly and unexpectedly in a ski accident. Then my mom’s health declined precipitously, and she died two weeks ago. This weekend, my best friend Chris, co-founder and editor of the podcast, had his dog Penny die suddenly.
All of it makes me think of a scene from The Crown. The Queen and the Queen Mother are watching Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis on TV after the assassination, and the Queen Mother says:
“Didn’t you say how unhappy she was in the marriage?”
Elizabeth replies:
“Yes. But that’s the thing about unhappiness. All it takes is for something worse to come along, and you realize it was actually happiness after all.”
Sometimes people will say to me, “Well, it can’t get any worse.” I will semi-jokingly say, “Do not tempt fate. It can always get worse.”
Mark Nepo calls this “the terrible knowledge,” the awareness that we can be erased in a second. And so can anything we love.
So what do we do with all this? (In addition to grieving our losses.)
Should we live on guard, bracing ourselves for the inevitable hardships to come? I don’t think that works. It sucks the joy out of life as it is and does not take away the sting of loss.
The Stoics and the Buddhists recommend contemplating the reality of death regularly as a way to prepare and to appreciate the preciousness of life. This is a valuable practice, but sometimes hard to do.
I want to leave us with something that faces toward life, not away from it.
Frank Turner (previous podcast guest, the person whose sharing of my book brought me the most joy, and, according to Spotify, my most-streamed artist of all time) says this at the end of his song Polaroid Picture:
“Let go of the little distractions
Hold close to the ones that you love
‘Cause we won’t all be here this time next year
So while you can, take a picture of us”
The thing that I find most valuable there is that there are two clear actions.
The first is to let go of the little distractions. What things are we worrying about, fretting about, or thinking about that matter little in the grand scheme of our lives?
And the second is to hold close to the people we love. Paying a little bit more attention to them, reaching out a little bit more often, making a bit more effort. Pausing to appreciate that they are in our lives.
None of that erases the losses or even prepares us for the next loss, but they do offer a way of living more meaningfully in the happiness that is present.
Pause and Reflect: Spend five minutes today setting down whatever “little distractions” have your attention, and instead spend those five minutes connecting with someone you love.
What is the current thing in your life that you are unhappy about that you would miss desperately if it were gone?
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