An Uncertain Future

musings on grief, love, and legacy

There’s something about my mom that I’ve struggled to put into words. I think that in order to wrap my mind around it I need to go back a few more generations, with my mother’s grandmother.

My great-grandmother lived for nearly a century, and yet she spent half of that time telling my mom, “This will probably be the last time you see me. I’m not feeling so well. Thanks for coming to say goodbye.” Her grandchildren had grandchildren of their own by the time she passed away on this exact date. She was 97.

In the days leading up to Mom’s memorial service Dad shared a story with me, in which another relative commented they were sure to “kick the bucket” sometime very soon and Mom argued quite passionately that nothing is certain. “Nobody knows what time they have left,” she said, “Any one of us could be next.” That word of wisdom hits differently now.

(C.S. Lewis, “For the present is the point at which time touches eternity.” Image from Quozio)

Let’s be real with each other: we hate uncertainty. It makes us feel weak and helpless. We imagine what will likely happen in the future and then unconsciously begin to hold that version of events as a promise. We believe we know how long we will live and how long our loved ones will live. Death is a polite queue - each person lined up in order and waiting for their own appointment. Only, that’s not true at all. Some live a century or more. Others die in infancy. It’s all so unpredictable and wildly out of our control. It’s frightening, quite frankly.

I believe Mom lived her life with such clarity because she experienced the sting of loss so young. Mom was 15 years old when her father died of a heart attack, her mother suddenly widowed in her late 30s. Mom understood that “nobody knows what time they have left” and she seized that as a call to live her values to the fullest. Her life was shaped by pain - both the emotional and physical sort - but defined by love. Her intimate acquaintance with mortality spurred her not to fear but to love. And her love was extravagant. It’s hard to fathom her impact, but somehow hundreds of people have a story called “How Stacie Changed My Life”, all with unique circumstances.

(Image: Stacie with her parents circa 1960)

Every life has a beginning and an end, with no way of knowing how much time we’ve got in the middle. My time on this earth may be 64 years like my mother, or perhaps 97 like my great-grandmother. Either way, my power to live a good life exists entirely in this present moment. In “The Screwtape Letters” C.S. Lewis writes, “The humans live in time but [God] destines them to eternity. He therefore, I believe, wants them to attend chiefly to two things, to eternity itself, and to that point of time which they call the Present. For the Present is the point at which time touches eternity.”

My mother was a woman who understood what mattered most and lived in a state, as Lewis would say, “all lit up with eternal rays”. She knew better than anyone that the future is not guaranteed. So, she made the most of each day. She lived a life of love and left behind a legacy.