On Life, Loss, and Longitude

Last week I called my dad on the walk home from the gym to boast about my run.  It was only two miles and it had been pretty difficult, but I can always count on my dear old man to congratulate me on what ever small feat toward my good health I'm able to accomplish.  Especially recently.  He knows how hard it's been for me the past four or five months.

He let me talk, gave me the praise I sought, but he sounded tired.  Exhausted, even.  "I have some bad news," he said with a downward slope to his lack-of-inflection.  I hounded him with a quick list of family members who could be in trouble.  "Do you remember Dan?" he said finally, sounding sad and regretful.  Dan.  His good pal, Dan.  My facebook friend, Dan.  Weekly household laugh, Dan.  Sent my parents a Christmas gift, Dan.  Of course I remember Dan.  "Yeah," he continued, "he passed away last night."

Let me just say that I have no authority on health that I plan to exercise in this post.  I have tracked maybe four days of a week's seven on average this month -- and my non-plan days have been party days.  Eat this because you may never have the freedom again days.  Because you wouldn't be able to otherwise days.  "Weight Watchers" is a sinful phrase days.  Peanut butter days.  Ice cream days.  Little hands squeezing your heart days. That's how I have been practicing life lately and that is my very humble disclaimer, so please think of this post as a reflection on my life and Dan's, and how they routinely and ideologically intersect.

A few weeks ago, I began to worry about my health on a deeper lever.  Its like I'm reverse-Weight Watchering.  I mean, I'm watching my weight... but I'm watching it go up.  What about my heart, I've been thinking, what about my cholesterol?  But my health, my wellness, my life always seem salvageable.  Reversible.  Do well for three days, run without pain, and be fine.  Check.  Dinner time?  Snap out of it Kels, it's a lot more substantial than that.

I think whenever someone dies it's common to take a look at your own life and take perspective, make comparisons, connections, prioritize.  Especially when that person leaves unreasonably and unresolved.  Now, I don't know a lot about Dan, his life, his health, or the "big picture" in terms of his lifestyle, so I will not speak for him, but I know the very funny, seemingly jolly man was, in part, depressed.  Or stressed.  Or something.  I know he worked from home, survived a few sour marriages, indulged in junk food, cigarettes, and alcohol, and I know that he lived for his dogs.  I know he loved to joke around with my dad, hundreds of miles away, over the internet.  I know he rested his head at night on his couch in front of his TV.  I know that was where he was found, having let go, due to natural causes.

Dan's life lived and life lost resonates like a parable in my mind.  Happy, but sad.  Not sick, but self-medicating.  I want to learn from it, I instantly thought, I want it to inspire me.  To change me.  But, like most potential movie-moments in life, that isn't happening and it shouldn't be something I ask for.  That's a really selfish thing to want.  ...but then again, I should be being selfish.  I should want the best for me.  Yet more pointedly, I should want to do the best for me.  And that's something I really need to work on.

When health becomes a matter of life and death, it's so easy for the rest of us to, say, start chopping broccoli, take a walk, eat an apple, run a few miles.  But the problem is that health is never a matter of life and death and when the latter in those two polar opposites becomes a possible option, the "simple" challenges of individual decisions no longer matter.  Because life and death is the bigger picture.  It's the grand scheme.  It's not one mile, but a thousand.

I have complete respect for Dan and as far as I know, he was a wonderful, jovial, interesting man and he made my dad's past few years at what was otherwise a grueling job bearable and sometimes even fun.  It's a really sad thing, his passing, but I think the best I, our families, everyone can do after coping with a loss like his is respect the absence by respecting what's present.  Thank our bodies.  Live our lives.  Take care of ourselves just a little more.  I'm sure anyone who's ever lost anyone to a stroke, a heart attack, or another poor health-related cause can tell you: when it really comes down to it, your health is not just for you.  It's for them.

January 31: 80 Apples, 47 Miles.  

Rest in Peace Dan Howard.  

The next hundred are for us.