Life is Short…and getting shorter by the minute

Fifteen years ago, in preparation for turning sixty, I set my alarm clock for 2:24 am (the time of my birth) so I could be awake and present at the moment I would officially be starting my sixtieth year. Sitting on the side of my bed I was struck by the realization that I had more years behind me than I did ahead of me. It was sobering and daunting. This fact, when initially realized, brought some anxiety, a mild sense of panic, punctuated by fleeting moments of denial, and a deep sense of sadness for those I would be leaving behind.

Even this powerful realization that landed like a thunderbolt, was not enough for me to fully take it in, believe it, and live as if I fully appreciated what this meant…what the Universe was trying to tell me. Some part of me still subconsciously imagined there was no expiration date on this body or life. I was sixty—"the new 50!” I reminded myself. I wasn’t going to die any time soon so I lived as if I had all the time in the world before I would even begin to see or feel any real signs of aging or death in the shadows. I thought surely my years as a hospice end-of-life educator and grief counselor had prepared me well for my own journey through the final chapter of life when the time came. This belief eventually became #1 on my all-time Naïve Beliefs When Confronted with Life’s Greatest Challenges list

And just in case the rapidly escalating shortness of life wasn’t fully sinking in with me, the facts recorded at recent visits to the doctor, told me I was also getting physically shorter by the minute, having shrunken from my normal height of 5’8” to my current height of 5’6”. “Oh, that’s normal as we age…as our vertebrae degenerate and spines compress,” said the somewhat cavalier 30-something doctor whose medical education and training gave her tools for what to say in situations like this. It was obvious to me she had no idea how insensitive and dismissive she sounded…sort of like the person you are telling your mother died, and she says, “Oh, sorry to hear that…my dog died recently and I know just what you’re feeling.” While the death of a beloved pet is a great loss and brings deep sorrow, it is not the equivalent nor should it be compared to losing a central person in ones life. They are different losses. People who make these responses have no awareness of the inappropriateness and insensitivity of their words, how it would be better to say nothing. I stopped judging and forgave her at this point in the visit when I remembered a wonderful young social work intern I once worked with, who was married to a physician, telling me, “Medical school robs students of their humanity.”

What medical school had not given her was the humility and understanding that only comes with the firsthand experience of living into elderhood, of experiencing the enormous losses of the aging process. It was only theoretical at this point in her life. If she is blessed to live long enough, she will experience her own inescapable losses firsthand…the losses that start off at a barely noticeable pace and ultimately begin galloping as we get closer to the end of the journey.

I remember many years ago—at least 20 or 30—driving behind a car with a bumper sticker that said, “Shit Happens.” I laughed out loud and heard it not as something negative or a victim statement but as a realistic fact. It struck me then, and still does, as the best, most truthful bumper sticker I have ever seen…a good reminder that life will always step in and give us something we are not expecting…a challenge or a gift, depending on the lens we are looking through.

Life has a naturally occurring way of starting to prepare us for death long before it’s actually in the pipeline. It might be the dream job someone lost through the downsizing of staff when a company went through a change of ownership or management, when the employee’s identity was wrapped up in their job and title.

Or the house that is suddenly “underwater” in an unforeseen economic downturn when the owner, in the quintessential example of “bad timing” had finally put it on the market, counting on the profit of the sale to fund what they thought would be the last home they would ever purchase and the last move they would ever have to make. Now instead of the sale price and profit that would have existed even one year earlier, they were left owing money.

Or it might be an unexpected pandemic bringing the entire world’s life to an abrupt halt—not just yours—with isolation, fear, and deep grief.

It might be an unexpected serious health issue or diagnosis that shakes you to your core, that provides the necessary bat-to-the-side-of-the-head wake-up call that says, “You’re not in charge here...here’s the next step in your course on letting go and preparing yourself for the Granddaddy of Letting Go that will eventually come.”

Today, at the age of 75, after a heart attack requiring four stents in three arteries at the age of 68; a ruptured cerebral aneurysm and subarachnoid hemorrhagic stroke that required a helicopter ride, three weeks in the Neuro ICU, three weeks the step down ICU, and another three weeks in rehab learning how to walk again at the age of 73; the loss of independence, being told I could no longer drive; a painful and unforeseen (never mind that I should have seen it) family dynamic I never imagined could happen, another loss of home and yet another move at a time when my expectation was that the remainder of life would be settled and peaceful (this now also on the Naïve Beliefs list); being assessed and fully qualifying for the benefits of the Americans with Disabilities Act.  After all this I think I’m finally starting to get it way beyond the theoretical level, and getting pretty deep in to the practical level! All of a sudden, the expression “life is short” has taken on new meaning. It’s not just an overused catchphrase…it’s fucking real.

I was lucky enough to have wise women friends and mentors throughout my life who were often decades older than me, who were not afraid to talk openly about the reality of aging and death. My dear friend, Vivienne, who was one of the funniest people I have ever known, once pointed to the brown spots on her hands when she was in her 60s and said, “Oh look…God’s little calling cards.” I had never heard that expression before or since. At this age I’m guessing Vivienne heard it somewhere along the way and wasn’t the first person to say it even though she was certainly clever enough to have come up with it on her own.

Thirty years later, as those brown spots began to pop up on my own hands, I immediately thought of Vivienne, long since gone. Now every time I see them on my hands and creeping up my arms (as if there wasn’t enough real estate on the back of my hands for them to make their mark), I remember Vivienne with love and an inward chuckle, and that God will soon be calling me home as well. I am grateful for the part Vivienne played in my education on aging and how to do it with gentle humor and acceptance of what it portends.

 Ruth was another wise woman friend and spiritual mentor I also knew in my 20s. She was in her 70s, and I would sometimes pop into her bookstore in San Francisco for a “dose of Ruth.” On one particular visit I found her alone in the back of the store, where she would often hang out when there weren’t any customers out front. A contemporary of Ruth’s we both knew had recently died, and I was wondering how she was doing with the loss. I said, “It must be hard to lose someone you were so close to…how do you deal with death?” She took an intentional pause, looked at me with her beautiful face, a soft smile and knowing gaze, completely present and in her body, and said, “This is life, it is to be expected, we learn how to accept it, feel the grief, and remember we will all die.” Her simple matter-of-fact statement, cloaked in compassion, love, and truth, made a lasting impression on me. It wasn’t until many years later I understood fully what Ruth was talking about and had gratitude for the essential part she played in my education, the acknowledgement of my own death, and the death of those I love who will die before me.

 Every time we lose someone we love, every time we start the process of downsizing our lives and parting with treasured possessions we love and couldn’t imagine living without, every time our teenage children need us less and our adult children turn to us and relate to us less as their own family and busy lives become their priorities, we are experiencing the lawful and painful losses that help us acknowledge and prepare for letting go, for death, even if in the moment of these important lessons there is nothing we welcome or can find any value in. It just hurts.

What a debt of gratitude we owe to those people and unexpected circumstances—the loss of a marriage, the loss of a home, the loss of someone dearly loved, life-changing illness, the loss of identity, the loss of who we think we are. All these painful losses help to prepare us for the ultimate loss and biggest life event we will ever experience.

 

Carol Schoneberg

March 31, 2025

Evanston, IL

carolschoneberg.com