May 18: A resolution of sorts

A former classmate of mine was killed last weekend. Obviously, this is shocking and tragic. People my age are not supposed to die. We’re supposed to be mid-career, becoming parents, developing arthritis, getting Botox injections, attending reunions as “honor class” members. Not going to funerals for our peers.

He and I met when we were Outdoor School counselors in the fall of 1985; later we attended WWC at the same time. He and Vic’s brother were good friends, and he came to our wedding because he was married to a friend of mine at the time. But I honestly never knew him all that well.

Thanks to Google, it was easy to find details about the accident in which he died. Almost everyone that signed his web site’s memorial guest book mentioned his enthusiasm for motorcycle racing and something about how he died doing what he loved. Like Steve Irwin, JFK Jr., Dale Earnhardt, and many astronauts, there are those who literally live and die for their passions. Some of us left behind find comfort in that kind of ending.

I’ve thought about this a lot lately. If people find comfort in my untimely death, it’s not going to come from the assurance that I died doing something I love to do. I mean, I don’t exactly have any risky hobbies. Occasionally going on amusement park rides and walking to my mailbox after dark might be the most dangerous activities I pursue. I suppose if I was electrocuted by the TiVo remote and found on my bed with the “Now Playing” screen on TV, surrounded by empty pudding cups… THEN I think people would say “the last moments of her life were spent doing what made her happiest.” Yeah, there’s a big woo-hoo for Jen.

The thing is, I don’t want to take up riskier hobbies. The live-every-moment-like-it’s-my-last conviction is not suddenly pounding in my chest, pushing me to run down the street and cannonball into the Clackamas River. I’m really quite satisfied to spend a sunny day on the deck with my laptop and a stack of good books, thank you. Maybe even if it were my last day. This lack of adventure is pathetic only if it’s something I think I might regret one day, no?

I like the idea of living fully, like this classmate seems to have done. “Full” for me does not involve bungee jumping or fishing in the Bering Sea, but at the end I hope to feel that I didn’t miss an opportunity to do the things that were truly important to me. The things that fed my soul. The things that made me—to paraphrase a famous line from Our Town—realize life while I lived it.