passing

I’m a bit of a hypo-chondriac. Any strange bump or odd ache that can’t be traced and imme-diately I begin to imagine my final days. So I have this strange pain in my finger and in my wrist and I start thinking its some unusual, undiagnosable disease and this is it. Normally it has felt quite tragic when I had these dramatic thoughts. Now with Lukas it all takes on a new sadness. This morning as I am changing his diaper, carefully avoiding my aching finger, I imagine his life without me. I imagine our final days together. He would want to play but I am ill and unable. I imagine him growing up hearing stories from Jorg about me, from my friends, from my parents. I imagine him looking at baby pictures that I am in with him and how he wouldn’t know me. I almost make myself cry. Okay Susan it's time to reign in your dramatic imagination. You have gone too far. But this is a reality for some people. These things do happen. These thoughts make every moment now precious. The realization that it could all change keeps me awake to the moment. My health, my life is not guaranteed. I am not owed anything. I am only human. I have often thought that if we only acknowledged the fact that none of us will be here forever, that everything is temporary, then we could really live. We could really love. We could see the small frustrations as what they are, small. We could really be here in the moment, knowing that this is all we really have. I look at Lukas and I think to myself, if everything goes as it should go then he will outlive me. This is the way it is supposed to be. I look at him and see a small piece of my own mortality. I feel my own age. I am no longer the youngest in the generational line. I am moving through it and this is both beautifully natural and poignantly sad. I don’t think that I am really dying of a rare finger and wrist disorder but I know that I will die. I will not be here forever and I am here now. As I hold my little baby and feed him at 3:00 AM, as I empty the diaper pail for the millionth time, as I stand at the window with him and watch the cars pass, I think to myself, this too shall pass. Nothing is forever. All I have is this moment with its perfect disorder, with its beautiful, mundane and profound offerings.