We Are So Lucky

My friend Dave once said, in his inimitable funny and wise way, that there should be a Death Channel to prepare us for the inevitable.   

Steve Jobs recognized the same truism in his famous commencement speech for Stanford grads:

“Remembering I’ll be dead soon is the most important tool I’ve ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life.  Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure – these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important….No one wants to die.  Even people who want to go to heaven don’t want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share.  No one has ever escaped it.  And that is as it should be as Death is very likely the single best invention of life.  It is Life’s change agent….”

Though we are rarely prepared when it happens.   

We are blindsided when a good friend gets an unexpected scary health diagnosis in early February and puts on a fight, and her family, friends and loved ones (numbering in the thousands I think!) put on a fight, and then impossibly, shockingly we learn…the treatment isn’t working.   

We hear the facts, and yet somehow that doesn’t sink in.

About two weeks ago, Jen went into hospice care, and two days ago while I was away on a work trip we learned that Jen passed away.  And tomorrow morning we, her broken hearted loved ones,  go to her funeral, and honor the amazing daughter/aunt/colleague/dear friend she was. 

And then we do the impossible, and somehow move forward without her.

Beloved by all, her ad agency created a truly wonderful happy video, giving you a glimpse into the type of person she was, and the profound impact she had on so many people.   For  many of us, Jen was often the person you’d want to talk with about major and minor life events.  And of course, she’s the one who I want to talk with most about this.

When I moved back to New York 4 ½ years ago, she gave me this print as a homecoming present.  For the past couple of weeks I’ve been reflecting on its words - We Are So Lucky -  thinking that none of this felt very fair, or very lucky.

And yet...if truly lucky people recognize it’s the people they love and get to share life with that matter most, Jen may be one of the luckiest of us all.