Dilemmas for the Living

I guess I'm somewhat unusual (or maybe I'm the norm?) in that I don't have a real fear of dying. I have a fear of being killed, because of the loss of control and pain aspects of that. I don't want someone else to have the final say in when I'm going to go. But I've always thought that if I were going to take my own life, or die of a disease, I wouldn't be afraid. Sad, but not afraid. After all, some of the people I've found most interesting in this world have joined the list of the non-living--Robert Stack, Bernie Mac, Beverly Sills. They all did it and they're (probably) okay...why wouldn't I be?

No, I'm much more fearful of losing someone I love. I know the day will probably come--a mother, a sibling, husband, friend--but I'm not really prepared for it. Just the thought of it can lead to terror-filled nightmares of my life spinning out of control, my days filled with dread, spent comatose in bed. I don't know if that's how it would really be, but that's how I feel it would be. When Adam and I talk of our mortality, he always says, "Stop being so melodramatic, Lady! You're young and you'd find someone else. You'd forget about me within a few hours!" I know he's trying to lighten the mood, but I sometimes think he doesn't actually know how deeply and truly I'd grieve if something did happen. I know it's cliched to say so, but my world really would collapse around me if something happened to him.

But that's really not what I wanted to write about. The topic I've really been wondering about for the last several months is how people deal with moving on from the death of a loved one. How do you reconcile how your life has changed--maybe for the better--once a loved one has passed away? A notable example is that of Vice President Joe Biden. We've all heard the tragic story of the young politician who lost his wife and daughter in a car accident, left to raise his two young sons alone. Some years later, he met his future wife Jill. My question is, if he could have had it all over again, would he still choose for his life to have worked out the way it did? Wouldn't he want his first wife and daughter to have lived? But what about his love for his current wife? If his first wife had never died, he would never have married Jill. How does he reconcile that?

On a more personal note (and I'll leave names out for the privacy of those mentioned), I have a friend who has dealt with this very dilemma. She was only a baby when her father died of cancer, so she grew up only knowing him through photographs and letters he wrote to relatives and friends. While she has a deep respect and love for him as her father, I'm not sure she has a sadness for a man she never knew. However, her older sister was 5 or 6 when the father died, and remembers him quite well. Because of this, she still deals with a lot of emotion from having lost him so young. My friend once told me that she and her sister have very differet perspectives on his death. My friend said that while she is sad to have never known her father, his death set in motion a course of life events--growing up close to her mother and sister, marrying her husband, having her kids--that she would never trade in, not even for having had her father alive while growing up. Her sister, on the other hand, disagrees. She feels like if her father had lived, her live would be different, but just as good. She might have chosen a different career path that she loved just as much, another husband who she was as in love with, given birth to other children who would have been her world just as her current kids are. For her, having had her father in her life while growing up would be worth having ended up living a different life.

I remember once watching characters on my soap opera, Guiding Light. Ed Bauer had lost his longtime wife, Maureen, to a murder, but had found solace years later in Eve. I remember asking my mother how he could truly be happy with Eve, knowing that he was only with her because of Maureen's death. I said, "If Ed could have either Maureen or Eve, who do you think he'd choose?" My mother hesitated for a moment before responding, "I think he'd choose to have his wife back. Few people would prefer to have a loved one dead." I pressed on: "But what about Eve? He loves her, too? What would he want for her?" Mum answered, "I think he'd wish her well, hoping that she would have found true love with someone else."

So is that how it works? If you could have your loved one back from the dead, you'd wish happy things for all the people who entered your life because that person died, but you'd be willing to give them up? Or is it more complicated than that? Do people not even think these questions because figuring out the answers would be too hard? When I think about something awful happening to Adam, the thought of meeting someone else doesn't occur to me. It feels like the relationship would be tainted, like I only met this person because of Adam's death. There's nothing romantic about that. But I also admit that since I'm not in the position of being a widow(er), I don't know what it's like to be lonely for companionship and wish for a partner again. In my mind, now, Adam is it.

I realize that for many of you who read this blog, this whole topic could hit a sensitive spot, and I'm not asking anyone to talk about anything they don't want to. However, it is a subject that genuinely interests me--how do we deal with the joy that is created from someone's death, and would we return the joy if we could get that person back?

Apologies for bringing up any sad memories for anyone, or for bringing anyone down. However, if anyone out there wants to talk about this topic, I am very interested.