What is it precisely that makes it so devastating when a child dies, even more so than an adult's death? I think it's that promise of potential, cut short, a thread snipped before the tapestry is woven.
Yet how many of us truly live up to that potential that we mourn in a young person's death? The sarcastic part of me sees sweatpants and video games, dead-end job and hardly the kind of earth-shattering minds that we envision while staring down into a tiny casket.
Sure, probably not ever person feels an overwhelming desire to change the world, make a difference, live a life of meaning, but we become a society merely content with the status quo. It's far easier to swim with the current, and so on. We try to fit in, rather than stand out... and somehow years and decades slip by without us even noticing.
But isn't a part of who we are and the potential influence that we have also based on those people we meet, get to know, mentor, help, laugh with and love? Is the sadness over a young person's death also the loss of an entire storyline - all the heartaches and triumphs, all the loneliness, and the courage, the love, possible children, the lineage, the completed masterpiece of a life?
No comments:
Post a Comment