Before and After

Then:

My route through life was intransigent and generic- I would marry, have two to five children, ride motorbikes forever, manage a team in the NHS or be my own boss, I would live to be an old man and the only grief I would know would be when my parents die peacefully as content, old, insightless, wealthy donors. It was fatalistically dull and predictable. It was unconsidered. Plans were fantasised about and rarely equated action. The future was large, distant and full of potential. I used to feel as if I could do anything I want, in the future, and the only worthwhile limit was my inclinations. My happiness would depend on simple desires or easily achieved goals. I was satisfied with answers not questions. My life, love, personality and future would unfurl naturally before me and evolve in convergence with the stable and beautiful environment I would naturally find myself in. Time was on my side. The world would come to me and it had the responsibility of increasing my happiness. Almost everything was important and the few things that were unimportant were irrelevant. Provincialism matters. 

I was a husband, father, son and friend. I was not an orphan or widower. 

Now:

Life is unpredictable and I have to design my own map. Life is impermanent. There may not be much time and as there is no guarantee I will live to be old I need to ensure I reduce the risks as far as I can. It is essential to consider how to live- to put psychic effort into weighing advantages and disadvantages of effort, leisure, love and legacy. The future is brief and fast and not a minute should be wasted. Doing nothing is not a waste of time if I do nothing well. Wasting time is unforgivable. There is no later- plans must be agreed and acted upon now. Now. There is no later. There is no later. 

I can't do anything I want and I am limited by more than I thought but failure is less destructive than I had feared and can be coped with. My happiness is my responsibility and is less valuable and desirable than contentment. There is greater satisfaction in positing questions than in receiving answers. Life can be a revolution not just an evolution. 

I must go out into the world. My actions affect everything else to a greater or lesser extent so I must be careful and proactive. What world do I want to leave behind? If I do nothing I have made a choice to do nothing and as there is no passivity here my actions have meaning. 

Almost everything is unimportant. Greater value should be placed on the few relevant things in life. Provincialism should be dismissed in favour of universalism. 

I am a husband, father, son and friend. I am not an orphan or widower. As a man whose child has died I have no entitlement to a shared and easily identified denomination. I cannot let other people know I want no response or conversation by using "widow" or "orphan", words that carry weight without unnecessary detail. Instead I have to state the repugnant action of death every time- "my daughter died"- and it is now about what happened to her not about who I am, whether or not I wish to share it, and it is none of their damn business. I am forced to be complicit in their grief and I am forced to face mine again. 

"Life now has a permanently provisional feeling"- C. S. Lewis, on grief

"There is no shortcut to grief, you just have to put the hours in" - Alain de Botton