Wait! I'm not Done with You!

What do you say when someone says you won't see them again because by then they'll be dead?

I recently attended a family reunion, where I was delighted to see some of my mother's cousins.  My mother's cousins are the only people on earth, as far as I know, who remember my maternal grandparents.  My grandfather died seventy-five years ago, and my grandmother eighty this summer.  My mother was a little girl then.  She remembered her parents, but from a little girl's perspective, so the information she could give me was limited.  It's even more limited now, since she is with them.

I asked one of her cousins, who was eight when she was five, what he could tell me about my grandmother.

"Very little," he said.  "She was very quiet."  I found myself nodding as he spoke.  Somehow, I knew this.  Maybe because I have her same dark gray eyes, and I'm quiet.  Maybe because there are few pictures of her, and the pictures that exist show her sitting or standing quietly, not even smiling in most of them.  I believe she was a kind and gentle person, but that was in the days before "Say cheese" was invented.

"Uncle Parl was, too," he said, and I nodded again.

I can fully believe that my grandparents were very intelligent but non-showy types, like my mother and all her siblings that I knew and all my cousins.

Still, I appreciated that much information.  He was a child, too, and they were quiet people.  And the extended family was large.  I imagine he put a whole lot more energy into playing with his cousins than giving even one thought to my grandparents.

There wasn't a lot more to say to him at that point.  I thanked him and told him I was glad to see him again.  I said I'd see him at the next reunion, in two years.

"Oh, I won't be here then!" he protested. "I'm eighty-seven years old!"

Awkward.  But he's still in good health, and he has a cousin who is ninety-one.  I told him I hoped to see him again.

Then walked away, feeling empty.

I wish life weren't so short, and that I had more time with him.  I wish I had more time with my own cousins and siblings.  I wish I had more time with my children, but they're so busy growing up.  Since I outlived my grandmother (who died young), I have this sense that my life is whirling away from me, faster than I can imagine.  I may never get to Switzerland.  I'm pretty sure that I'll never produce every single Shakespeare play with my family.  I'll be lucky to finish the Sudoku puzzles I've saved from the newspaper.  It's a dirty job, but somebody's got to do it.

I've done some of the things I'd always wanted to do.  I've had a family.  Of course, I'm a long way from finishing raising them.  I've written a book, but I haven't seen it on the shelf yet.  Even the things I've accomplished, though, I don't feel through with.  I can't imagine deciding about the things I really enjoy--okay, I've had enough of that now.  I hope I never know that that was my last piece of German chocolate cake, for example.  I actually hope to never have a "last" conversation with the people I love, even after they are dead.

My first strong emotion when I learned that my mother died was disappointment--I was not finished with her yet!   That surprised me, but it makes sense.

I want to read everything, learn every language, converse endlessly with the people who interest me.  I want to be able to pick up my children as babies again and kiss their necks and make them laugh and look at me like I am the most wonderful thing that was ever created, although they are.

I hope that at the end of my life, I have more to show for it than a bunch of Sudoku puzzles.  Or, worse, unfinished ones.