No regular post from me this week. Real life take precedence over blogging again. During our annual trip to rural western NY for the 4th of July, I got the news that my grandmother died. No need to be sad! She was 95 years old, so it’s not like it was some unexpected tragedy. We should all be so lucky to live that long. Still, it has been an exhausting week.
So on Sunday, we drove the six hours from western NY back to Cohoes, getting back at midnight. I went to work on Monday, left early, drove the 2.5 hours back to my hometown in CT, slept on an air mattress in my parent’s house, got up the next morning for the wake, funeral, burial, and lunch, then drove the 2.5 hours back to Cohoes on Tuesday night. So needless to say, the office was the last place I wanted to be on Wednesday. I just wanted to take a daylong nap.
The bright side of any funeral like this is that you get to see people you haven’t seen in a long time. I see my dad’s side of the family every year at at Christmas, but that’s usually it. All the aunts, uncles and cousins are scattered across the northeast. I like seeing everyone, and they all made it to CT.
And without fail, we all left soon after we arrived. In and out within 24 hours. And hey, I was one of them. But this is Grandma we’re talking about: Mother of five, grandmother to six, great-grandmother to two. I’m just saying, it seemed weird. But everyone has jobs and needed to book it out of town to get back to work. Everyone, that is, except my dad. Can you guess why? Yeah, he’s the only one who’s retired. So he stuck around for a week.
I guess not everyone receives bereavement time, or else they feel work is so very important that they can’t use it. Seems to me like a funeral is a good chance to see family, come together, remember one of your own, leave work behind and confront the reality of death and all that. You might have noticed that I didn’t mention Marge making it to the funeral. That’s because her 10 days of sick/personal/vacation time are already used up for the year. I get 15 days just for bereavement every year, but I’ll go out on a limb and guess that I’m an outlier.
So, what a world of mixed-up priorities we live in. Do you know how long a mourning period would last during the Victorian era? Like six months or something! I mean, those people were really into keeping up appearances and wearing black and all that. But still. These days, you have to keep your nose to the grindstone. People seem to think that there are very few good reasons to get away from work. But there are thousands of good reasons to get away from work! One day I’ll post my ultimate pro-vacation time screed, You’re Not That Important, so I can tackle our cultural paranoia about using leave time.
Anyway, the funeral got me thinking, as they tend to do, about death.
Death’s grim spectre hangs over me, as it hangs over us all. The scythe will cut you down at some moment in the future. Maybe now, maybe later. You might live to be 100 years old, or your could bite the dust tomorrow. Saving everything you can will help you in either situation.
If you’re lucky enough to save a lot and retire early, you can maximize that blissful time before that powerboat driver accidentally runs you over while you’re taking your leisurely daily swim. But if you live into your old age, you’re going to need that money to pay for your long term care, because little Aiden would rather pull the plug on you than tap into his meager savings.
I’d be lying if I said that one of the reasons I want to retire early wasn’t a fear of death. There are fewer things sadder to me than the person who puts in 30+ years, and then dies before they retire. We’ve seen a friend’s mother get cancer and die just before “retirement age.” One of the reasons I was brought to work in my current office is because they were short-staffed: Someone there died after having a heart attack on a fishing trip. It ain’t nice to have one-third to one-half of your waking life taken up by paperwork, people.
I guess what I mean to say is that you have to enjoy things while you can, and prepare for the future. Death can come fast or slow.