Recently I watched a movie. It was pleasant enough, not great, but it had a moment that started me thinking. The male lead was a numbers nerd, taking comfort in statistics. His father gave him advice to ignore the odds and go after the girl.  

There are somethings in life that we must pursue despite the odds. The reward is pain but the time before the pain is a beautiful life. The pain is devastating, the better the life before the more destruction the parting brings to you. 

As we moved through this life, we can live alone to avoid the pain. Or we can mix, date, love and marry knowing at some point your heart will get broken.  

You may think not if I die first, my heart will not get broken. You could even think that marriage ends in divorce, and that will not have pain because you had stopped loving.  

What if you do not die first. What if you do not want a divorce.  

You can avoid the pain of life. Or can you? 

We all have parents. Grandparents.  

My paternal grandfather died when I was young. Exactly what age I do not remember. I have two memories of the event. On the day of the funeral, I attended to school, I thought about it all day, staring out of the window at the sunshine wondering about him, about my father, about the burial. The other memory is of one of my siblings asking me how many times I had cried. When I answered I was told that they loved him more because they had cried more times. Greif is a competitive sport.  

To get to my paternal grandparent I had to travel an hour on the train from one city to another. For that reason my visits were few. But I remember him making me a guitar with an empty tissue box and a couple of elastic bands. I would strum and sing nonsense sat on his knee. Even now I can still feel the sadness. A sadness that has dwelt in me for fifty years. After his funeral, he was never spoken of again. My grandfather’s name was James. 

I do not think of him often. And writing this is the first time a thought of him has bought tears to my eyes. 

My parents are both dead.  

There were no tears for either of them. It does make me wonder if my reaction will be the same when a sibling passes. Something had hardened my heart so the tears, the grief was absent.

I made a comment the other day on a post about the decline in people going to church. In that comment I said I had not attended a church since 2005.  

I could tell you a story here. I have related this story to others, it made some of them cry.  

It, of course, involves the death of someone I loved.  

Devastating? Yes. 

Destructive? You bet your life it was, her daughter (my stepdaughter) and I had to leave the home we lived in. She moved into a flat and I a house. She was nineteen.  

We do not talk about her mother. On the anniversary of the day, I send her ‘Love you baby’ in a text and she returns it. We do not have to talk about her, we know.  

My daughter went from being Katie, blonde hair and wearing pink to Kat, with dark hair and dark clothes. She is still Kat, it suits her. She wears colour now, but not pink and her hair has never returned to blonde. 

Without my daughter I would have self-destructed. Living the life of the introvert that I am, I shut off from my broken heart. Dating without passion.  

Would I change my life? Would I go back in time and tell myself, “You are going to meet someone today. They are incredibly special; you will know that almost instantly. But you must walk away. The pain you will feel at the end of it will change you. And not for the better.”  

I would not know my daughter, my granddaughter, I would not be the man I am today.  

For a while I commuted to work until I transferred to an office close to where I moved to. On one of these commutes, I saw an ex walking home so I offered her a lift. Her son had committed suicide. An atrocious act, which must be devastating to any parent. I felt for her. How could you not. All that guilt sitting inside your head. How frail and small that must make you feel.  

She said to me, “Losing a son is much worse than losing a partner.”  

Perhaps it is. Perhaps if I outlive my daughter the pain will be worse than losing her mum. However, I will say it once: Death and grief are not a competitive sport. Loss is loss. Pain is pain.  

Death is devastation.  

We all need to remember that when the next mass shooting happens. When the next murder is reported. When the next terrorist aberration causes an army to invade a country. When the next war breaks out. When you wish death to all those that do not share your political or spiritual views. 

Death is devastation. 

We should all be able to die from natural causes, preferably at a grand old age. Where those that you leave behind will grieve, but ultimately know you lived your life, you loved your life.  

Death is devastation.