180 Degrees

Someone I know died this morning in a freak accident: she had a gas leak and her house exploded. I don't know this woman well. I know her daughter and her future son-in-law, but only slightly. I won't be rushing to her daughter's house to comfort or to do any of the things we do when someone dies, because I wasn't that close.

I am a mourner from a distance.

My heart breaks for this woman's daughter. The what if's, the if only's, the hundreds of thousands of times she will play and replay the scenarios, looking for clues, looking for answers. In my case, it was easier. My mother was 83 years old and had suffered from Alzheimer's for six years. So I didn't need to spend time thinking about what might have been had some key element to the story been different.

This death was senseless and cruel. Tragic. I don't know how her daughter will ever come to accept what has happened to her mother. How long will it be before she forgets the explosion for five minutes? For ten minutes? Until she's able to watch a football game? Go shopping for a dress? Go away for a weekend with her husband? Get through a week without thinking about this every second of every minute of every hour of every day?

No, no sense can be made of this.

A couple of hours after I heard about the explosion, I received news of another sort. A close friend called to say that a difficult relationship in his life is starting to get a little easier and his faith in the human spirit -- and in friendship -- is being restored. He sounded happier than I've heard him in a while.

I am struck by the two extremes that presented themselves to me in the course of a very typical, very average morning: grief and agony, joy and faith. These are the twin towers of our lives, very often standing at some level of distance from every day life; speaking for myself, I live mostly in the in-between bit -- that stretch of relative okay-ness that is neither pain and suffering nor delight and wonder. I go to the dry cleaner and I have a pleasant chat. I buy arctic char because they've run out of swordfish. I chat with my neighbor about lawn maintenance. And this is all good. Oh yes, very good.

Life turns on a dime. It's that old line: Stop in for a jelly donut and end up living in a foreign country. We make plans (and God laughs). We think ahead.

And then something stops us in our tracks. It can be grief, it can be joy. It stops us and makes us live in that moment, right in the here and now. I am reminded of this so often lately that I wonder if someone in the universe is trying to tell me something.

And the answer to that query is: Yes. Someone is trying to tell me something. And that someone is me. I am telling myself to pay attention. To look up. To be.

In this moment, I am devastated for this poor woman and her family. And I am happy for my dear friend and his peace. Feeling both ends of the spectrum and believing I am more alive in the moment for allowing myself to do so.

A smart therapist of mine from New York once told me that I lived my life in that very safe range of roughly 60 to 75 degrees on a 180-degree line. She said I would be more fulfilled -- but less safe -- if I broadened my experience to reach as far to the right and as far to the left as possible on the spectrum of full emotional experience.

Today, I am feeling 180 degrees in all its wonder, complexity and difficulty.