On Mortality and the Parent/Child Relationship (sort of)

I never used to think much about either of these things.

In my twenties, I remember being so bored by all the storytellers who wrestled with the idea of mortality, and also by those male writers who placed the father-son relationship as central to every narrative. Get over yourselves, I thought. Everyone dies eventually. I don’t need to hear you obsess over it. And who cares about your dysfunctional relationship with your dad? I really can’t relate. My dad and I love each other. We don’t always agree, but I don’t feel the need to shape my life around the idea of proving myself to him or defeating him in some way.

Decades later, I still stand by those sentiments for the most part. But I have to admit, things look different as I nudge closer to 50—I’m currently 47—and as we approach the 1 year anniversary of my father’s death.

A few years ago, I was chatting with my doctor during an annual check up. I don’t remember how we got on this topic, but he said something like, “People in their 40s think a lot about mortality. They get scared of dying. But people in their 90s really don’t worry too much about it.”

I remember going to visit my Grandpa Diller before he died. He was 94 and had a heart condition that he knew would kill him soon. He was okay with it. He said he was ready to go anytime. In fact, he wasn’t sure why God was waiting any longer. Grandpa felt like he’d gotten as much out of life as he needed and didn’t have anything else to offer the world other than spending a little more time with family, saying goodbye before the end.

I don’t think my dad was quite there yet when he died. He wasn’t as old as Grandpa (Dad died at 76) but I’m not sure he would have gotten to that place even if he had lived to 96.

To clarify: on the one hand, Dad told us multiple times that he felt like he had a full life and already lived longer than he expected to. He wasn’t afraid to die. He would miss Mom and all of us, but he was not afraid to experience whatever came next.

On the other hand, right up to the end my dad had too many dreams, too many ideas about what more he could do in the world. If it weren’t for the various health issues that made life so much harder, I don’t think he would ever have wanted to stop living. Dad was always a fighter. During the last hours of his life, when the spreading cancer had all but shut his body down and the hospice team had increased the frequency of morphine to ease his pain, Dad actually seemed kind of pissed off to me. (He could be pretty grouchy at times.) By then he couldn’t really speak coherently enough to tell us what he was thinking, but it seemed clear to me that what he really wanted was to unhook himself from all the tubes, climb out of the hospital bed, and go home, so he could get back to doing all the things he enjoyed and cared about. He was confused and frustrated by the fact that his body simply wouldn’t cooperate with his wishes. (For the record, Dad did stay home as long as possible, and I definitely believe the hospice house was the right place for him to be those last two days.)

After being with three parents through the dying process (Emmy’s parents both died before my dad), mortality is more consistently on my mind now in a way it never used to be. It poses questions more urgently. What do I want to do with the time I have left? What do I want to accomplish? What do I want to experience? What do I want to see?

It’s also very easy for my ego to get caught up in thought spirals about accomplishment, impact, legacy. What difference did/will I make in the world? How will I be remembered? Does my life even really matter?

After being with three parents through the dying process, mortality is more consistently on my mind now in a way it never used to be.

I think all the questions above are worth dwelling on, but I’ve started to wonder if a better question to ask is, What can I learn from my elders? Focusing on that question produces way less anxiety for me. By looking at their lives, I can set down (at least for a while) the dreams/fantasies about what my life could be and instead look at more realistic examples of actual lives of the people I have known and admired.

This isn’t to say I think we should discard things like dreams and aspirations, but I remember something my dad said to me years ago. He said that around the age of 50, he started to get a much clearer understanding of what was fantasy and what was real. And he felt like that knowledge was freeing to him.

So, when I try to remember the real lives of my parents, grandparents, and other elders I have known in my life, here are some things that stand out to me. What follows certainly won’t capture everything I should have learned, but these are the things that come to mind while writing this today. I wonder what would you might come up with if you wrote a similar reflection.

Some Lessons from the Lives of My Elders

From Emmy’s parents, I learned courage, graciousness, and generosity. They came from the Philippines in the ‘70s with almost no material possessions, leaving behind all their family in a time long before things like video chat. As the oldest son, Emmanuel was charged with setting out across the world to create a better life for his extended family. What a phenomenal act of bravery for both of them. When they came to Iowa, he served as a pastor to rural White congregations. Some were welcoming and kind. Others definitely were not. In these settings they learned how to embody God’s love and grace to others in spite of the ignorance and other human faults they encountered. They worked hard, managed their money extremely well, and gave generously not just to their family back home, but to many, many others. They always wanted to know: what did you want to eat, and how could they help?

From my mom’s parents: do the work it takes to craft a good life. After living through the calamities of the Great Depression and WW2, my mom’s parents understood the value of order, discipline, hard work, security, and stability. I didn’t always appreciate their perspective when I was younger. I loved them, but I also sometimes found them to be too rigid, persnickety, and traditional in many ways. (I hated when my grandmother corrected my grammar.) I have very fond memories of the home they built, the land they lived on, and all the ways they tried to craft a good life for themselves. I loved Christmas at their house when I was a kid, and visiting them in Texas after they started to spend their winters there.

From my Dad’s parents: give your life to your ministry. Love people. My grandpa’s calling was to preach the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which was both personal and social. He was a Methodist who believed Christian love should shape society to be more holy and just. My Grandma’s ministry was children. She raised six of her own children, I don’t know how many foster children, and also led youth/children’s ministry in Grandpa’s churches. Dad talked about how much children loved her, and the huge groups of young people she would draw into the life of the church.

I loved being around my Grandma Ball when I was a child. Spending time with her in the kitchen was always a treat. Both of my Ball Grandparents went at life with passion and vigor. Maybe sometimes too much, as in the case of my hot-tempered Grandpa. They were never wealthy like I always thought my mom’s parents were. But they had so many other kinds of richness in their lives.

My dad was cut from the same cloth as his father: passionate, principled, committed to his ministry. Not always practical, but creative and visionary. He was a leader, not in the sense that he cared all that much about position and influence over others, but because he believed so deeply in making the world a better place. He taught us that faith was something to be lived out in real life, not just talked about in church.

Dad wasn’t perfect, and at times I know he was disappointed with both himself and the deep failures he saw in the world. He was clinically depressed at times. He was grouchy. As he aged, he struggled with serious health issues. But he stayed so engaged even when life was very difficult. He continued to learn and grow and debate ideas and try new things. He lived life with imagination. And he empowered his children to do the same. He loved us even when he challenged us.

It’s my Mom, though, who truly showed me how to love others. Love for Mom isn’t a lofty ideal to be preached about. It’s a real, day-to-day practice, a way of being with others. It’s humble, generous, forgiving, nurturing, playful, joyful, steady, honest, comforting. Love is Mom, at least for me. And when I say that, I don’t mean to say Dad wasn’t loving. He most certainly was. But my mom embodies love. Love for her children and family, love for all the people she worked with in her career of service, love for life-long friends and new acquaintances, love for animals and all of creation.

With mom, I have never once felt judgment. Would she call us on our bullshit? Of course! Did she ask questions when we did things that didn’t make sense to her. Yes. But everything was grounded in love. We never had any doubt that she accepted us and valued her relationships with us above all else.

I don’t know where you are in this journey.

Maybe you’re young and even a little annoyed by the topic of death. Maybe you’re in your 80s and shaking your head at a guy in his 40s pretending to know anything. Maybe you’re closer to my age, seeing your elders begin to move on and worrying about what’s left for you in the time that remains.

All I can say is, as I shift the questions away from myself and reflect on their lives, I feel a helpful change come over me. Instead of anxious worry about what my life will become, I feel gratitude. Gratitude that I have had them as mentors and models. Gratitude that I don’t have to get it all right, that each of us leads life in our own way, and every sacred life has something to teach.

I also feel gratitude for you. If you made it to this point in this post, thank you for taking the time to read these thoughts.

P.S. If you care to share some lessons you learned from the lives of your elders, I’d love to see that in the comments section.