A Heavy Load for Death to Steal

I have a gray hair.

I noticed it last autumn.

I still don't know what to do with it.

Occasionally, it makes me tear up.

Because it elicits such a strong emotional reaction, I can't just yank it out or spritz half a bottle of Sun-In on it. It's like a scar, and it has a story. I'm not going to destroy it or mask it because the story isn't a secret. It's about what we all do:

Get old.

At the beginning of this year, I hired myself out as a hospice caregiver. It was a very hard 3 weeks of my life. I had never watched someone die before. It was an up-close, naked kind of experience. I couldn't believe I'd been gifted with the awesome privilege of caring for this person. It was a joy to serve them. But every day until they finally "slipped the surly bonds of earth" was devastating. Despite modern medicine, despite a skilled medical team, the elder suffered much. I got caught in an ethical swirl of helping someone stay alive while simultaneously helping them die.

I kept imagining myself in their place.

I kept praying prayers that were not to be answered.

Death is gruesome and sometimes morphine doesn't work enough. Sometimes, people don't pass peacefully. Sometimes, their last cognizant moments are filled with terror. I'll always remember the terrified eyes.   

No one should ever die alone.

No one should ever die without someone there praying for them, even if the prayers seem to be in vain.

Today—Sunday—was filled with Sunshine, new friends, and happy coincidences. I just got back from two weeks in la Republica Dominicana. The hair on my arms—I have an extravagant amount of hair on my arms, for a girl—has already changed from dark blonde to shiny gold and it's not even the summer solstice yet.

Given that happiness, why am I thinking such morbid thoughts? Why I am stuck back in sub-zero January next to a deathbed? Why is my single gray hair taunting me amidst all the gold?

Because I need to remember that the time is short. I need to fill myself with urgency.

Twice today I dared to speak a dream that I have, and, similar to the few other times I've vocalized my idea, speaking it makes me feel...foolish. Because how could I actually accomplish this dream? What makes this dream any different from the ones that have, historically, not even materialized enough to be granted the comparatively high and mighty status of dust?

Go get that government job, Mattea. Your dream is foolish. You're a little girl with flowers in her hair in a world full of Wall Street Wolves. Go home where little girls belong. Dye your hair, add more flowers, and dance to a culturally normative song. 

I'm thinking morbid, freezing thoughts because I and my dreams are giving a nod to death. When I am on my deathbed—God please may it be one surrounded by family and may I depart gracefully and with grace—what kind of a life do I want to have lived? (If it weren't such an important question it would be cliche by now.)

Do I want a life in which I dreamed big, took leaps of faith, and tried? (Success not mandatory.)

Or one in which I took the beaten path?

For some reason, when I look death in the eye my dreams don't seem so foolish.

When I keep death in my sight, dreams seem worth speaking.

And dreams, spoken, are powerful in their own right. Dreams spoken vibrate atoms in the air, cause the synapses in my listener's brain to fire. Dreams spoken carve a pathway in my own brain, one that wasn't there before.

Speaking a dream is not something I take lightly.

That is why I'm trembling.

What have I done? What am I doing?

I'm mocking death and the dying process. I'm laughing at that which has the power to take away everything.

It will take away everything. But I want that "everything" to be a heavy load for death to steal.

And then I'll fly, weightless, free.

Redeemed.