Life and Death
"Time is life."
- William Bond
I got the quote above from William Bond's book "Home-Based Catalog Marketing, A Success Guide for Entrepreneurs" one of the many business books I read when I was starting my card company. In it, he stressed the importance of time management and of acting quickly on your plans.
Personally, I prefer to think: "time is the medium of life," because time and life are in no way interchangeable, yet life would not exist without time and change. Just as paint and canvas are the media of my paintings: my paintings would not exist without the canvas that supports them, and they would not be paintings without the paint I have applied to the canvas. Without the passage of time, we would never be born, grow into adults, or die.
Today is my mother's birthday. If she had lived, she would be 74 today. But she died in August,
2004. Although it was over a year ago, I still think of her often, and still miss her. The void her passing left in my life is still fresh. She always took the time to listen to me and be supportive, even if she could not understand what I was talking about. More about her at: Eulogy for Ursula Markovich.
As I write this, my father lies dying in a nursing home in Maryland, and the end of a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. I drove down to see him earlier this week, and was shocked at his appearance. He looks pale, frail and skinny, and much older than his 81 years. Now he is very different from the strong, healthy, intelligent man I depended on during my childhood and early adulthood. He no longer eats, drinks, or opens his eyes. The nurses told us that hearing and touch are the last senses to go, so my sister and I talked to him and rubbed his arms, hoping that would provide some comfort.
When I look at the lives of my parents, and the beginning of the life of my son, I have come to think of life as a bell curve in time. We start out helpless, completely dependent upon others, and with no idea about what's going on in the world around us. If we live long enough, many of us wind up helpless, completely dependent upon others, and with little idea of what's going on in the world around us. If we are lucky, in between we get several decades during which we are capable of not only taking care of ourselves, but also going beyond that to accomplish goals or take care of others. As I am now in that capable phase, I try to make sure to take time out to do those things that are important to me, like spending time with my son and working on my art. And I am thankful to have this time today, because I cannot count on tomorrow. In life, the only thing we can really count on is change.
- Claudia
P.S. My father died on December 14, 2005. He was married to my mother for over 48 years when she died, and they were very close. When he died on her birthday, I felt that they were somehow cosmically connected to the end.
- William Bond
I got the quote above from William Bond's book "Home-Based Catalog Marketing, A Success Guide for Entrepreneurs" one of the many business books I read when I was starting my card company. In it, he stressed the importance of time management and of acting quickly on your plans.
Personally, I prefer to think: "time is the medium of life," because time and life are in no way interchangeable, yet life would not exist without time and change. Just as paint and canvas are the media of my paintings: my paintings would not exist without the canvas that supports them, and they would not be paintings without the paint I have applied to the canvas. Without the passage of time, we would never be born, grow into adults, or die.
Today is my mother's birthday. If she had lived, she would be 74 today. But she died in August,
2004. Although it was over a year ago, I still think of her often, and still miss her. The void her passing left in my life is still fresh. She always took the time to listen to me and be supportive, even if she could not understand what I was talking about. More about her at: Eulogy for Ursula Markovich.As I write this, my father lies dying in a nursing home in Maryland, and the end of a long struggle with Parkinson's disease. I drove down to see him earlier this week, and was shocked at his appearance. He looks pale, frail and skinny, and much older than his 81 years. Now he is very different from the strong, healthy, intelligent man I depended on during my childhood and early adulthood. He no longer eats, drinks, or opens his eyes. The nurses told us that hearing and touch are the last senses to go, so my sister and I talked to him and rubbed his arms, hoping that would provide some comfort.
When I look at the lives of my parents, and the beginning of the life of my son, I have come to think of life as a bell curve in time. We start out helpless, completely dependent upon others, and with no idea about what's going on in the world around us. If we live long enough, many of us wind up helpless, completely dependent upon others, and with little idea of what's going on in the world around us. If we are lucky, in between we get several decades during which we are capable of not only taking care of ourselves, but also going beyond that to accomplish goals or take care of others. As I am now in that capable phase, I try to make sure to take time out to do those things that are important to me, like spending time with my son and working on my art. And I am thankful to have this time today, because I cannot count on tomorrow. In life, the only thing we can really count on is change.
- Claudia
P.S. My father died on December 14, 2005. He was married to my mother for over 48 years when she died, and they were very close. When he died on her birthday, I felt that they were somehow cosmically connected to the end.
posted by ClaudiaM at 10:11 AM
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