Life goes on

Life makes itself known

A few days ago, my father had a heart attack.

His main artery was severely blocked, and he was rushed into an emergency procedure where doctors placed three stents to restore the blood flow.

Thankfully, the operation was successful.

I was not told what was happening until it was over and the immediate danger had passed. Perhaps that spared me some hours of unbearable uncertainty. Still, the moment I heard the news, I felt the panic rise inside me.

Once again, I was confronted with mortality.

Once again, the possibility of sudden loss stood before me.

I am not ready for this, I pleaded silently.

Only days earlier, I had learned that my mother has cancer. It is operable, and next Tuesday morning, I will drive her to the hospital for surgery. There are reasons to be hopeful, but the word itself carries weight. Before I had found my footing with one piece of frightening news, another arrived.

Life is so fragile.

And somehow, that is part of what makes it so beautiful.

When I visited my father after the operation, he looked at me and said:

“Life goes on, my dear Maja. Life goes on.”

I could not quite fathom his words.

“What do you mean?” I asked. “After having a heart attack?”

“Whether I am here or not,” he replied, “life goes on.”

There it was.

A truth so simple and so enormous that I did not know what to do with it.

When Life Reorganizes Itself

My father is still in the hospital. His doctor has told him that his recovery will take months and that he will need rehabilitation.

In an instant, his life changed.

And so did ours.

He and his wife have been building a cabin that needs to be properly sealed before the Icelandic winter arrives. Now my siblings and I are gathering there over the weekend to help finish what they cannot attend to while he is in the hospital.

There is work that needs doing.

There are materials to secure, decisions to make and things that cannot simply be left exposed to the coming weather.

Life goes on.

Not as an abstract philosophy, but as hospital visits, rehabilitation plans, surgery appointments and a half-finished cabin waiting to be protected from winter.

When life changes in an instant, the calendar changes with it. New responsibilities appear. Plans are rearranged. People rally. What one person can no longer carry is picked up by others.

Perhaps that, too, is love.

Whether We Are Here or Not

Today, I reminded myself how happy I often feel despite all the chaos life seems determined to create.

There may never be a dull moment. I may never reach some mythical place where everything is settled and I am permanently free from turmoil.

And yet, life goes on.

It goes on for us while we are here, and it continues through those we love after we are gone. One generation carries something into the next, and on and on we go.

Perhaps love is the force that carries life forward.

The love we give today may travel much further than we ever will. It may live in our children and in the way they love their children. It may remain in stories told around tables, in values passed from one generation to another, in a familiar expression, a certain kind of laughter, a family tradition or a sentence spoken at precisely the moment someone needs to hear it.

The love we give may continue working in the world long after we have left it.

A Little More Sunshine

I have a beautiful home.

I have wonderful children, extraordinary friends and a pretty little puppy who has entered our lives like sunshine.

Her name is Sóla. She had already been given the name when we found her, and once we met her, it suited her so perfectly that we did not dare change it.

In Icelandic, sól means sun, and somehow she is living up to her name.

Sóla has brought new structure and purpose into our home, along with immense joy. She is not merely a puppy occupying our time. She has become a new little person in our family, with her own personality, needs, mischief and love.

Training her and bonding with her have been a joy.

She needs to be fed. She needs to go outside. She needs to play, explore, learn and rest. She does not care whether I feel prepared for the day.

She greets life as it arrives.

Perhaps it took a puppy to remind me that life goes on.

I can no longer live only inside my grief.

That does not mean the grief has disappeared.

The Cut

Feeling so much joy with Sóla has been perplexing at times.

Not long ago, I was standing in my home listening to melodic music filled with memories. I held my puppy and swayed with her as a song played that Stefan and I used to sing along to in the car.

A warm wave of pleasure and joy moved through me.

For a moment, life felt so lovely.

It felt right.

Then the rock in my chest sounded its alarm.

I looked at Sóla and thought, I wish Stefan could have met you.

In an instant, the joy split open.

I remembered us together in the car, singing that song, our children with us, heading towards another adventure. I felt the immense loss of him like a knife to the heart.

I crumbled.

I sobbed.

My son heard me and came downstairs. He wrapped his arms around me, and his calm love helped my nervous system begin to settle.

“Thank you,” I told him. “You are calming my nervous system.”

Then I said, “I just had a cut.”

I did not need to explain what I meant.

“Yes,” he replied. “I know.”

He knew.

A memory had cut through me. A beautiful memory, which is sometimes the sharpest kind.

For a few moments, past and present had collided. There I was, dancing with new life in my arms while grieving the life that is no longer physically here to witness it.

Sóla had brought me joy.

And the joy had made me miss Stefan.

This is the perplexity of life after loss.

Grief Lives in Joy

The sobbing eventually subsided.

It always does.

My breathing calmed. The moment passed. Sóla still needed caring for. My son went back upstairs.

Life went on.

When I saw my father after his heart attack, I cried too. But those tears held something different. They carried fear, relief and immense gratitude.

Joy, even.

Joy that my father had been spared.

Joy that we have more time.

“I am not ready for this, Dad,” I told him. “We are not ready.”

Of course, we are rarely ready.

In that moment, I longed for Stefan too. He would have been beside me through this. He would have been part of the worry, the waiting and the relief, just as he would have been here with us when his own father died.

This is how grief moves.

It enters the frightening moments because we miss the person who once helped us face them. It enters the beautiful moments because we want them to be here to see what we see. It enters celebrations because we still hear their laughter, and it enters sorrow because we remember the comfort of their presence.

In sadness, anxiety, relief and joy, I still miss Stefan.

I always will.

I have come to terms with that now.

The loss of him lives within me, but so does the joy of him.

The jokes.

The laughter.

The values and ambition.

The structure he brought to our lives.

The countless adventures and travels.

The smiles, the stories and the endless memories.

None of it disappears.

Everything Belongs

Grief and joy no longer feel like opposites to me.

They feel circular.

One can open a door into the other without warning. A beautiful song can lead to sobbing. A hospital room can hold tremendous relief. A puppy can awaken both delight and longing. A heart can be frightened, grateful, broken and full of love at the same time.

It all belongs in the same place.

There can be joy in grief. There can also be grief in joy.

Perhaps those who have known profound loss can sometimes experience joy with a startling intensity. We understand its fragility. We know that a moment does not have to last forever to be sacred.

I wish Stefan could have met Sóla.

I wish he could have stood beside me in the hospital and seen that my father was all right.

I wish he could be here for the kids.

I wish he were here for all of it.

And still, I am grateful.

Grateful for the father I can still visit.

Grateful for the hopeful possibilities ahead for my mother.

Grateful for my siblings and the way we are gathering around our father and his wife.

Grateful for my children, my friends and this home.

Grateful for the little creature following me from room to room, asking me to participate in life today.

Grateful even for the ache, because it reminds me that I have known extraordinary love and companionship in this lifetime.

Life going on does not mean leaving anything behind.

Perhaps it means carrying all of it forward.

The love and the loss.

The laughter and the tears.

The people who are here and the people who continue within us.

The work our loved ones can no longer carry alone.

Life goes on.

And somehow, love does too.