Goodbye, Jane -- You Mattered, Today Matters, Let's Live Life

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When I found out on Facebook, I was speechless. Jane was dead. How many people must have known her? How many had been influenced and moved by her, the way I was? I can’t even recall the last time I saw her in person. It was in another life, for sure.

I’d mentioned Jane a time or two in my writing over the last several years — how something she said stuck like a permanent stake in my memory. I still have a Word draft filed away about her — about how the things she said live on. She had a way with words and wisdom, and sharing it. I didn’t get to finish that draft before she passed. If only I had known.

Jane was my favorite professor of all the wonderful professors whose teaching and mentoring changed me. Jane was a little extra, bringing humor and experience to help her students sense what the world might be like after college. After I graduated, she asked me to be her teaching assistant at UC Berkeley for a couple of semesters. We’d have lunch together, discuss anything under the sun. She mentored me on all the things under the sun, too.

When I heard she’d died, I was hit by that infrequent realization that life is short, that we only have now, and that I’d better start valuing now more than I do.

I walked around, opened in a new way to this life for a few incredible minutes — like three or four — and then, bang. I quickly reverted to the stupor I normally live in, oblivious to this moment, my mind bent on crossing endless things off my daily to-do list. Back to the same ole. Back to frittering my brevity away, whittling it down, and tossing it behind me.

Then, only days later, a member of my family had a major medical emergency, and a whirlwind of shock grabbed my extended family by the neck. Not only did this person have an emergency, but they had it while driving. Our beloved survived — the car didn’t.

For days, I lived in a dual mode of shock and industriousness. I flipped back and forth between sadness and productivity. My typical oblivious stupor while working vacillated with the stun of the unexpected. I’d go in and out of the awareness that life is short and unpredictable, but I couldn’t seem to stay there very long.

Until reality grabbed me by the neck, flipped me 180 degrees, and pointed to the truth: pay attention, Stephanie. This is your life. It might be shorter than you think. If this were the last of your days, what would you be doing right now? What would you be thinking? Would it be, Go, go, go and check all those boxes? Or would you be more relaxed, accomplishing things but enjoying the process?

I got mulch delivered not too long ago. It’s sitting on two pallets — two towers of bags to be smoothed out around my yard by yours truly. My lawn guy asks me every year if I want him to do it, but I kindly reject the offer. I’ll bend my arm up, pretending to show him my bicep — if you can even detect it — as if to say, I can do it, I need to do it, I’m getting old.

But this insistence adds another lengthy project to my to-do list and a sneaky invitation to dive into the stupor that pulls me from living in the moment. I need to do the mulch! I have so much to do!

Yet, the mulch is a perfect example of an opportunity to enjoy the process. If I take it as a fun activity, the process becomes joyful and interesting. Mulching has so much potential if I allow for it — music for dancing (known as mulch dancing), outdoor time, making something look nice, and physical activity.

So, I allowed for it. I told myself to have fun. Yes, it required a proclamation: You shall now have fun! And have fun, I did. The music blended with the hearty physical activity blended with a nicely weeded outcome.

Simultaneous with this recent mulch edict, I’ve been doing my daily walks without music or rumination — the two things that take me from noticing what’s in front of me. For some odd reason, more and more I’ve been able to walk and listen to the birds, take in the greenery, and gape at the sky. I’ve never done this for as long as I’ve been doing it lately. Where is this coming from? I have no idea, but I’m thrilled.

Our brains do this one-or-the-other thing. Either we’re aware of right now or we’re focused on the thoughts in our brains. If we’re not skilled at focusing on what’s in front of us, our brain’s default will even more readily send us into thought-land. Living so deeply in thought-land is what causes the shock to the system when a tragedy happens or a positive marker of time appears — a wedding, say, or graduation. We’re jolted back to the reality that life is short and tenuous.

Mindfulness isn’t the end-all, though. You can’t sit around saying “om” in the middle of the jungle. Plus, we learn by daydreaming and expansive thinking. We assess past interactions for future situations. We imagine what could be. We invent and have imaginative play. But getting jerked back to the fact of our lives has high value, too. We can see time’s speedy pace. Having that perspective can create meaning for us.

These jolts mark a brief emergence from foggy living into a crystal-clear view of what matters. And what matters? According to Robert Waldinger, it’s quality time spent with others. Maybe this is why someone’s death or sudden hardship highlights how much we matter to each other. And, if life is about each other, even though the busy world keeps pulling us away, then the shock of coming back is a gift.

Many people left comments on Jane’s FB page in response to the announcement of her death. I could relate to every one of them. They commented on her generosity of spirit, her love of animals, and her long history in the art world. She left this world with a trail of gratitude behind her. Did she know about this gratitude? I hope so.

Meanwhile, back in the here and now, my family continues to watch one of our members recover from their medical emergency. It’ll take time, rehab, love, patience, and care. It’s given the extended family a harsh reminder that the future is unknown. But I tell you one thing: I’m glad for these harsh reminders. The more I have them, maybe the more I’ll intentionally put myself in front of the people I care about and be there for them. Maybe I’ll issue edicts to enjoy what’s ahead in my day. Maybe I’ll worry less and enjoy more. One day, not too far in the future, isn’t that what I’ll be so glad I did?

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Hope you're well, friends.