A Waste - Part 2

This week, issues of death and dying are all around me. I heard of a friend's Grandmother who had a fall and now seems to be on an unanticipated decline. I heard stories of youngish folks who suddenly died of heart attacks, leaving loved ones in a state of grief and shock. "What a waste of a good soul," they said. I heard stories of folks with long-term illnesses that, although the family knew "the time would come," they didn't know it would be that day, so soon and when their loved one seemed stable. "It seems such a waste," they said. I ran across several deer carcasses while walking in the woods yesterday, seemingly not dead from natural causes. I wondered what happened and what each of their experiences was. And I lamented what seemed to be a waste of their lives. I heard stories of friends and acquaintances who have "spun out" emotionally, mentally, and psychically recently, losing themselves and their grasp on life in dramatic ways. No, they are not physically dead, yet parts of them may be, at least for the moment. "It's so sad. It's such a waste," I found myself saying. And then I asked myself, "A waste of what?"

What a strange phrase that is: "a waste." Can anything really ever be a waste? I took a moment to ponder how I've heard that phrase used and its meaning: "It's such a waste, they are wasting their life away;" "They died so young; what a waste;" "What a waste of time;" "That was a waste of energy." "It's such a waste, they have (or had) such potential...."

Hmmm. Is anything really ever a waste? What makes something a waste? Who decides that something is a waste of time, energy, effort, life? If it was here - if it arose, existed, and then fell away again - was any part of its role in that cycle a waste? We may call something a waste, yet who are we to judge?

We don't see the whole "tapestry" of life - not even our own; we only see one segment at a time. We don't know how all the tiny threads come together to make the tapestry of life whole or complete. We don't have all the information; we only have a tiny bit of it, our own limited perspective and experience. And in my view, that's simply not enough to fully understand why things happen the way they do, or to judge something as a waste. We may have our ideas and opinions about it, yet we cannot truly know.

Today, I have 280-something days left to live. When I die, will people say that about me? About my life or my death? If they do, what will that really mean...?



©2010 Cecilia L. Zúñiga. A Year To Live. All Rights Reserved. Reprints, copies or reproductions of any kind must be accompanied by copyright credit line.