Life and Death

Yesterday was a day of tragic news, as the world learned of the death of both Michael Jackson and Farah Fawcett, the former completely a surprise, and the latter was expected for a while due to her battle with cancer. Michael Jackson was only 50 years old, and Farah Fawcett 62. Still, as I read the news, I could not help but think to myself, “life is so transient and vulnerable to so many things – illness, accidents, etc – that it’s a wonder anyone can live to old age.”

As I look at my newborn son, I have started to worry about everything and anything. Short of protecting him all the time, I feel that he might be hurt. He’s at the beginning of his life, and he really does have his whole life ahead of him. But what if I am not careful about protecting him against all the germs, viruses, evils and disasters of the world? And how could I possibly do that, short of quitting everything else in life?

Then I got an e-mail from a dear friend who has had three kids by now. She wrote, “There will be endless number of things to worry about, and it's very hard to pursue perfection. Essentially, you don't realize how messy and conflicted and beautiful a life is until now. Right now it's total immersion in the baby and you might feel some loss of your own identity, but soon it will actually expand and reinforce your idea of self.”

Death has always frightened me terribly. Now that I am holding my baby boy in my arms and feeling his life, I find it hard to believe that a life so vivid and irrepressible could ever expire. As my friend said, we don’t realize how complicated and yet how beautiful life is until we create a life ourselves. Yes, we all will die some day. But part of us will live on, through our babies, who will get old eventually as well. But for now, they look like that they possess a rather eternal vivacity. They look like that they will just keep growing, thriving and living on forever.

And that’s of course a mother’s wish for her son.