This past week we were in Peru visiting my parents...
For some reason, when I am in Peru, I feel like I can see life clearer... kind of like when you are in Phoenix and you can see more of the sky.
In Peru, I feel like I can see the past, who I have been, and where I am going.
And, I get that this little story might seem overly dramatic or melancholy, but I hope you read it in the same tone that I felt it... grounded, grateful, and reflective.
For those of you that know me, or have been following this conversation for a little while, you know that I had two sisters, Dee and Ana. Both had Muscular Dystrophy and both passed away early in life. Ana passed away first at the age of 8 in 1978 and Dee passed away in 1981 at the age of 15. Their lives impacted me significantly, and continue to do so.
While they are long gone, I think about them often. It is by random chance that I did not receive the recessive gene that they did. It is by random chance, or by the will of God, that I was the one of the three kids that got the legs that worked, and get to play out my hand in life.
So, while visiting my mother in her nursing home, I remembered that she had my sisters with her. I hadn't seen my sisters (or any remnant of them) since I saw Ana lying on our foyer trying to be resusitated by the medics as her heart failed, or since saying goodbye to Dee at Children's hospital moments before she passed. And, yet, I have thought about them often.... virtually every time I run.
So, I went into my mother's room, and I brought my second son, whom I felt would somehow best understand this moment. I went into my mother's night table and found the two sealed plastic boxes with my sisters remains. Because they were sealed I could only shake them to get a sense for their contents. The lighter of the two boxes was Ana, I knew that.
It wasn't just ashes, or dust, in the boxes. As I shook them, I could hear what sounded like larger stones, or possibly teeth.
I held both boxes and realized I was holding nothing that mattered in my hands.
Everything that mattered I held in my heart.
Still, tears rolled down my face. Holding their ashes brought what was in my heart into clearer view...
There once was three of us, and now there is one.
By the grace of God or the chance of probability, I get to be the one that lives.
And, I am grateful... so very grateful to be the one that gets to experience life.
I think the guilt that I carried for years is gone.
But, the sense of urgency... the burning desire to make an impact lingers.
If I am the one that gets to live... I should make it worthwhile.... I should do good and live fully. I shouldn't waste time.
Someday, I will be the ashes... and I want it all to be a memory... I want my ashes thrown into the ocean from some high up cliff... I don't want any part of me to be left inside a box.
The tradeoff doesn't make sense to me... there is no part of me that wants to be remembered inside of a box, I want to be remembered fully in the hearts of those I knew.
Holding my sisters, I smiled to myself... Thinking outside the box or boxes for that matter, took on a whole new meaning. Thinking outside the box means thinking about the hearts of everyone I know and love... it means thinking about the impact that I am making, can make and want to make in the world... it means LIVING my life fully... and leaving nothing behind.
I am amazed for how many years I thought so very infrequently about them... it was as if, I was trying to live independent of them and their memory. I wanted to define my own life, and I didn't want to dwell on the responsibility I felt to make it worthy.
And, now I realize my life is so very dependent on them... on them and their memories reminding me not to be wasteful with my time, with my strength, with my love...
I am grateful for the life I was granted and the life I live.
I think about my sisters more often now... and I take them with me on every run, hike and walk...
As I put them back into my mother's night table, I saw my father had entered the room. I went to him and held him close. He is not so good making his feelings known, but somehow I felt the weight of this room on his heart... my mom's dementia and my sisters memories... and, I knew despite our differences, his heart hurts and he has a much more difficult time thinking outside the boxes.... So much of my father is locked inside of those boxes and inside of that room, and was sad with him.
I love that quote from Jobs which I have published before...
"Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything — all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure — these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."
My sisters' lives are a gift to me, because they make me more aware of the sentiment that Steve Jobs shared at that commencement speech in 2005.
Holding my sisters' ashes was a great reminder that all the thinking that matters is outside of those boxes. It's about what they left behind in my heart... that matters... it's about what I will leave behind in other's hearts that matters...
And, now, all I need to do is do a better job of acting on that wisdom.
And, I will.
In harmony,
Nestor