It is my profound belief that grief is one of the greatest teachers life has to offer us. There are innumerable quotes about how life without death is inappreciable. I experienced this more fully than ever
this summer.
Grief affects us all in different ways. It is such a powerful emotion that must be felt, or it can eat us alive. Grief exists not to punish us, but to make us realize that death is part of the natural procession of life. At the risk of sounding cliché, death exists also as a reminder that each moment we get out of this relatively short life of ours is, in fact, a miracle.
I’m sure many of you will find it rather odd that your new opinion editor has decided to begin the year with a piece on grief and death. Some of you may be able to put two and two together, but in the interest of saving time, let me clue you in.
This summer, while I was off at camp, I learned of freshman Todd Doxey’s accidental drowning in the McKenzie River. Though some time has passed, my memory of the day it happened will exist forever. Perhaps it was his time, but I knew Todd and I still wonder why he wasn’t give the chance.
I still experience flashbacks of all the nights I spent in Todd’s dorm room helping him with homework and quietly observing the conversations freshman football players have late at night. I recalled the last conversation I would ever share with Todd, regarding how he would get his homework checked the following year when I wouldn’t be living down the hall from him anymore. He just smiled mischievously as he put an arm around my shoulder and said, “Don’t worry, boo. I’ll call you.”
Todd’s death affected so many: the teammates whom he referred to as brothers, his family, and the numerous friends he picked up along the way. Whether or not you knew Todd, I am sure that with the return of school, he will be in everyone’s minds. When death takes a young person, we ask many questions and hope that perhaps we will discover it was all just a horrible dream. As I’ve started classes this week, I’ve seen several athletes with whom I lived with last year. Though I know Todd will never again be a part of that group (at least in life), I still do wish he would walk through the door wearing his customary grin.
Alas, a death like Todd’s does not bring impossible rewards, but rather puts our own lives in perspective. The grief we feel momentarily reveals the glaring similarities we all share. We are all human and we all mourn the loss of our loved ones. Dealing with death makes us realize how fragile life is and it makes us appreciate it even more. We have all dealt with tragedy in one way or another; it seems to be a stepping stone to growing up.
Though I do not know your experiences with grief, I will just say that I not only lost Todd, but I also lost a very dear family friend just a day after I found out about Todd. The double-whammy I faced taught me in order to move on with life, I had to let myself feel my grief in whatever way it was supposed to come out. Grief is not pretty, nor is it a fun emotion to bear witness to, but it is powerful and can drastically affect the relationships we have with others, ourselves, and life in general if we do not acknowledge it.
One of my favorite quotes from the poet Walt Whitman states, “To me, each moment of the night and day is an unspeakably perfect miracle.” Death reminds us that we can take absolutely nothing for granted. Life is not timeless, and we are not ageless. Our lives are single blips on a relatively short timeline and whether you believe life circles back around or that we only live once, it is true we only have a certain number of days to live. Death reminds us to appreciate every moment we do have even more.
Some days it may seem like your life is over your head. In those moments, remember you still live. Pain, though hard to deal with, reminds us we are still alive. After all, each moment is a miracle and my experiences remind me that everything can and always will change in an instant. When you’re sad, feel your grief and then go on. You don’t want to spend your life wallowing in pain. We don’t have many moments on this earth, so we may as well enjoy and live to the fullest the ones we are lucky enough to have.
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