Death and Life | goldwinde

Death and Life

Their death and your life

They had their chance at life. It's over for them. It's not yet over for you.

We commemorate their lives through these tombstones below. Although the specifics of their lives vary from ours, we are human, as were they.

They had a chance at life. Life used them and they used life until they died and their game was over.

You are still being used by life and you are still using life. Day after day, you continue to design the script and play out the story of your life for the chapters that lie ahead (or don't).

Are you fighting with life? Are you fighting with reality? Or are you dancing with it?

You are pushed and pulled by the same forces their lives were.

Desire, joy, pleasure, fear, anxiety, stress, pain, love, anger, hate, revenge, jealousy, boredom, excitement, curiosity, hope, fulfillment, discouragement, accomplishment, hopelessness, meaninglessness, peace, and failure...

Inspiration, hunger, passion, lust, decisiveness, courage, adventure, uncertainty, frustration, confusion, clarity, depression, struggle, resignation, indulgence, and exhaustion...

Connection, caring, camaraderie, cooperation, laughing, playfulness, compassion, resentment, kindness, empathy, cruelty, indifference, meaningfulness, beauty, guilt, righteousness, and feeling "not good enough."

Click the tombstone

Click on the tombstone below (not on the white arrow) to start your slide show. Get to know these strangers, each of whom lived out and completed their chance with life on this earth before you.

Take your time. Examine each tombstone as if you're going to try to recall the details of it later. Slowly read the captions. Feel what empathy, compassion, and understanding that you can for each of them. Which one touches you the most?

After you finish this slide show (there are only 6 slides)...

...then take at least 63 seconds to be present to your newfound thoughts and feelings.

In 1905, at age 16, W.L. died accidentally by electrocution in Fayetteville, Arkansas. His supervisor at the Electric Light Company buried him.

Did his parents or others mourn for his death? Does anyone remember him today, except for the way you happen to be as I bring your attention to him here? How was he thinking about his own life and the future he thought he had before it ended so suddenly? We don't know.

What if your life had ended at 16? How would you now think and feel about the life you had lived if you had died suddenly when you were 16 years old?

Dying before the advent of World War I, Francis' life spanned 73 years, remarkable during an era when child mortality rates exceeded 20%, and illnesses like scarlet fever and tuberculosis were constant concerns. Florence, his wife, reached the age of 62.

In the ebb and flow of their daily lives, did they find joy in their journey together? Were they parents? If so, how much did they and their children feel and show gratitude for each other throughout the years of their shared lives? We don't know.

Were they farmers, as was common for the majority of Americans in their time? What accomplishments were they proud of? What failures or regrets did they have? We don't know.

Were they happy right up until the end of their lives or would they have preferred to die earlier?

Hans fell short of reaching the age of 23.

Dying during the military occupation of Norway during World War II, did that German occupation contribute to his early death?

Did he leave behind parents or a wife who mourned his death? How happy or fulfilled was he throughout his 22 years of life? We don't know.

What worries or pressures did he feel? Did he experience his life as meaningful or mostly pointless? What future did he see ahead? Did death catch him by surprise?

What depths of affection did he feel for others, and how deeply did they cherish him in return? We don't know.

In 1913, Nguyệt was born into a world vastly different from that of my mother, who arrived nine years later in Douglas, Arizona.

Can we even attempt to fathom Nguyệt's emotions and perspectives as she journeyed from birth to death in a small village called Lương Sơn, a few kilometers from Hà Nội, Việt Nam?

Did she feel her life as meaningful or meaningless? What fulfillment or suffering did she experience in her relationships with her other family members? We don't know.

The water bottle and incense on her gravestone show signs of her descendants remembering her through the ritual of "Ngày Giỗ" or "Death Anniversary," performed yearly on the lunar anniversary of the day she died.

Her existence spanned the eras of French colonial rule, the Japanese occupation, and the Vietnam War. It's probable that she experienced chronic hunger for much of her lifetime.

The inscription on this tombstone in Arabic asks that we remember and honor the soul of Mihriban Nhrisah Osmanoglu. Except for her birth in 1916, most probably in Istanbul (then Constantinople), and her death in 1987, we can tell nothing more about her except that she was the granddaughter of the Sultan Abdulaziz and the daughter of Veliant Yusuf Izzettin Efendi, a prominent Turkish writer, poet, and journalist during the late Ottoman Empire.

Like you and me she was born into a world torn between the good and the bad as then expressed by the conflicts of World War I and the Turkish War of Independence, followed by continuing internal strife in Turkey.

Without being certain of any more personal details of her life, whether she married or had children, we can have compassion for her likely struggles between trying to live for her future and just wanting to relax and enjoy now. We can also understand the internal conflicts she must have had between caring for others and not wanting to look bad and those of taking care of herself and expressing herself authentically.

Did she think her life mattered and had meaning? Did she look forward to each day and feel privileged with the joy of being alive? We don't know.

When Edward was born, I was almost ten years old. Italian by descent, he was probably raised as a Catholic. When he died just after his fourth birthday, his family was hard pressed to find a story that would explain God's choice to take him away.

Like for all young children, the future for Edward looked bright. Was there a warning that his future was not to be or was his death a shock? We don't know.

Most probably, however, for the period of time Edward played out his chance at the game of life, he had more day-by-day happiness than the rest of us have had since we were past four or five who've enjoyed the privilege of living into adulthood and beyond.

For we have disowned that child within us. In our attachment to looking good and avoid looking bad, inside of trying to prove that we're good enough or smart enough or lovable enough, we have suppressed our playfulness, our curiosity, and our self-expression. We have sacrificed our aliveness in order to belong, to "be cool," and seem like we're "in control."

Look into the heart of that four-year-old child still inside you and allow his or her spirit to support you in the dance of your day-by-day life journey...

We already know the year you were born. We have some idea of how the first several decades of your life played out before you became a centurist.

We cannot yet make out the day and year that you died.

But we do know that, after you became a centurist, you had a new possible future to live into.

As you stepped into fulfilling that new life as a centurist, did you also step more fully into a life where you knew that everyone and everything was put there just for you to play with?

Did you also take a stand that you were a force in that world to be reckoned with, both for yourself and for others?

Day by day, week by week, did you find meaningful things to look forward to?

Did you reach the longevity escape velocity along with others who had become centurists?

We don't know.

Do you know?

"The best way to predict the future is to create it."
―Peter Drucker

"There is no end. There is no beginning. There is only the infinite passion of life."
―Federico Fellini

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