Honor their memory by Living for Today
Last week an ambulance rushed my brother-in-law, Josh Davis, to the hospital for what they thought was a heart attack. At the hospital doctors discovered that he had four aneurisms on his aortic valve and rushed him to surgery where they gave him a synthetic replacement valve. He didn't wake from the anaesthesia. Josh was in his late 40s.
Early this morning around 6am my fiance's brother, George Singer, experienced coronary failure at the age of 39. Over the course of the week my fiance and I have also received news that four more of our older family members have been admitted to the hospital with serious health concerns, including my grandmother (on my father's side), my grandfather (on my mother's side) and both of my ex-wife's parents.
Although we live with mortality, I don't believe mortality defines us. I believe what trully defines us is how we respond to the events in our lives. Both of these deaths were trully unexpected and they remind me that the time we have is precious. None of us knows how many days we have left - today is the only day, now is the only time. We should always spend the time we have wisely, improving ourselves, improving the world, and reminding our loved ones how much they mean to us. Every day should be our Oscars.
I wasn't able to attend the service for my brother-in-law and it may be for the best. People experience a lot of complex emotions at funerals and being autistic, I've never really felt like I fully understood them. I always feel awkward at a funeral, never knowing what to say or how to say it. Of course much of my life has been that way, but fortunately I've had less practice attending funerals.
After the service is over, we move on. And we remember the ones we've lost in all the places they're not. It's good to see that my sister is doing well, I love her very much. While I may not be very good at comforting others when they need it, the best way I know to honor the memory of our loved ones is by making the world a better place to live for those who are still with us. Knowing that our time is precious makes it all the more important that we improve the lives of others through important efforts like creating jobs for those who struggle with employment.
But I'd like to take a moment to do something that will honor the lives of Josh and George more specifically. Both of them died from heart disease, which is the leading cause of death in the United States and has been for many years now. In this country heart disease takes almost as many lives as cancer and stroke combined. I could make a donation to the American Heart Association, but I think there's a better, more effective way. We know very well what causes heart disease and we know how to prevent it at the source. We don't need more research, what we need is understanding.
More than any other influence, heart disease is caused by negative emotions: stress. Negative emotions are the mind's way of protecting us from danger. They help us to run if we need to escape from a threat, but they do this at the expense of our long-term health. Every time you feel that lump in your throat, your body starts doing everything it can to keep you out of danger now by cutting off the things it was doing to keep you going a year from now or in five years or ten years. There's also evidence to suggest that these same effects of stress also contribute to cancer and stroke, the next two leading causes of death in the US. Unfortunately for Josh and George, both of them struggled quite a lot with stress in one way or another.
So rather than make an anonymous donation that will go largely unnoticed, I'm going to do something else. I'm going to tell you how you can reduce your risk of heart disease.
No drugs, no diets, no hocus pocus.
Visit Barbara Fredrickson's PEPLab at the University of North Carolina and read about her Broaden and Build model of positive emotions.
Then read these science books:
- Mindset by Carol Dweck
- Learned Optimism by Martin Seligman
- The Luck Factor by Richard Wiseman
- Influencer by Patterson, Grenny, Maxfield, McMillan and Switzler
The order is kind of important. Of course, you can read them in any order, however, if you read them in this order you'll get the most out of them because each book will prepare you for the next one.
I promise, if you do these things, you will be happier and you will be healthier.
God Bless!
I understand the awkwardness of funerals. We all experience grief in our own way, and to be honest, I am not much of a griever; I tend to concentrate on the positive memories that I have. For example, when I think about my father who passed away a few years ago, I don't feel any sadness. What I do feel, however, is a lot of love towards him. If I ever get emotional about it, it's that I am overwhelmed with feelings of love, but not of loss.
When you experience things that way, people can definitely judge you very harshly - saying that you don't care or you are cold or you are unfeeling. What is ironic is that to the very opposite, I feel SO much, just not the negative aspects.
As such, grief is an odd feeling for me, and I don't know how to comfort others that well.
@Ben - thanks for such a genuine reply. What you describe is fairly similar to my own experiences. I think what troubles me most about the event of a funeral is the idea that in the process of trying to offer comfort I may inadvertently say something that backfires and instead of being a comfort ends up adding to their discomfort. They might respond by judging me, which of course isn't at all comfortable, but it's really their feelings that are the bigger concern for me. I know that it will all pass, I just want to support them.