Huliau - The Return Voyage

Very soon, ‘Iokepa and I will both be able to enter movie theaters at a discounted rate.  And then too, at the family-owned grocery on Kaua’i called “Big Save,” we will be qualified to save still another five percent on Senior Mondays.

Can it be forty years since I traveled throughout Europe on an International Student Identification Card that guaranteed me lowered rates of entry to museums, rail travel, and more?  All that was required then to earn the discounted entrance fee was  enrollment in an institution of higher learning.

That felt considerably easier to me than what is required now.  Now, I must confess to being sixty years old–sometimes, tortuously,  to sixty-two.  Like uncounted others,  I weigh whether the admission of age is worth the $2 savings.

I notice that absolutely no one “Cards” me as they did back when.  I offered my proof to a ticket seller at a local cinema and she waved it away.  She rightfully conjectured “No one lies to make themselves older.” (At least, at this end of the continuum.)

I remember that my parents began reading the obituaries in their fifties–expectantly.  My mother still thrives at 98; my father saw his 91st birthday. But the odds have shifted.  When someone we know dies in their sixties, the world does not mourn that, “She died so young.” (Only those of us clustered near her age console ourselves in that way.)

Here’s the truth of these past few months:  One very good girlfriend is enduring chemo for advanced uterine cancer;  another just had a tumor lifted off her brain; another struggles through a recurrence of breast cancer.

Oh, how we rationalize to cover the fear.  “How can I have cancer!?!” the first among these pouted.  “I eat organic and I do yoga.”

And so, we hear the still healthy around these suffering women trembling and trying to nail down blame–to explain.  “Well, she’s too intellectual–not in touch with her real feelings.”  Or, “She shouldn’t have used estrogen supplements.”  Or, “She has a family history of…”  We say and do anything and all things to distance ourselves from the possibility of death.

We refuse red meat.  We swallow fist-fulls of  vitamins.  We reject caffeine, alcohol, milk, wheat, acidic and/or alkaline vegetables.   We walk, jog, stair-step.  We run our hearts out to distance ourselves from our friends who seem to be losing the race.  We make them the, “Other” with our carefully reasoned words.  And still, we die.

And still, we die.

And yet, this story is not, for one single moment, about death.  Quite the contrary.  But here is the link:  We are born, we live, we die.  Those are the inescapable, non-negotiable givens.  It never has been, “Life or death.”  It has always and forever been, “Life and death.

Yet too many times–too much of the time–we never live at all.  Afraid of death, we refuse to engage life.  Our lives are circumscribed by negation:  I don’t  risk hurt, eat pork, take chances that may harm my health, wealth or general well-being.  Steve Jobs, the founder of Apple computers advised the Stanford University graduating class, a few years ago:  “Stay hungry; stay foolish.”

Stephen Levine said it a long time ago in his book: Who Dies? which I always thought should be titled Who Lives? That while our lives are defined by the insurmountable fear of dying, we refuse to take risks, we refuse to follow our hearts, we refuse…to live.

‘Iokepa Hanalei ‘Imaikalani has often said of admirable friends or acquaintances who die at an advanced age:  “He died too soon.”  For these celebrated lives–engaged, conscious and fearless–he is absolutely right.  For the rest of us, I’m not so sure.