The terror of dying

(A follow up to my last post written on the plane)

When I came out to my office this morning, it had frozen over night and so I needed to make a fire in my wood stove to warm things up. I was once again faced with death as I found a little sparrow had fallen down the chimney, while I was away in Vancouver seeing my Dad.

Unable to to escape back up, it had made it through the flu system and into the firebox, where it was able to see the office windows through the glass wood stove door. The poor thing was able to see the sunlight, trees and freedom, but was trapped in an iron prison, full of ashes from the last fire.

I could tell it had fought to get up the chimney: there was soot from the pipes blown out from the joint at the top of the stove. But unable to spread it's wings in the six inch pipe, it must have had to give up and try to find another way out. Or perhaps it was exhausted or injured, as it struggled. Inside he might have felt forced to choose the only path available, and followed the smell of fresh air coming from the damper, until he made his way through to the firebox.

I'm not even sure how he made any progress out of the pipe and into the firebox, given there is no clear path, or open hole. He must have struggled, terrified and clueless to the right way to go. Feeling his way along.

Inside the firebox, there was a lot of evidence of the ashes that had been blown around as he desperately tried to escape. The outside was right over there! He could see it through the glass door, not even 10 feet away. He had made it through the dark pipes, just one more impossible obstacle, and freedom!

I can't imagine the desperation: trapped, confused. Why did he even chose to go that way in the first place? Seemed like a good idea, I guess. With no idea of the consequences, he was now a prisoner in a dark, lonely place he never bargained for. How unfair is that? It is unfair, isn't it?

I hope he understands that I feel the tragedy of this all. I think it's unfair, yet God gave him, and us all, the freedom to get hurt as we fight forces none of use understand when we start out. Why does it have to be so hard?

Somehow, I hope he knows that I understand at least a bit, even though we're so different. Perhaps he does, somehow. I will never know.

How do you avoid a wasted life?

Visiting my father this weekend brought the topic up. He is, unfortunately, quite sick to the point of spending most of the time just resting, in pain, looking forward to a simple meal at the seniors residence. That's it.

He rather surprised me when he emphatically told me how guilty he was of not spending more time with family, and instead wasting time doing a job he wasn't suited for.

A) He took care of the needs of our family, quite well. That counts.
B) He's always been quite clear in choosing what he wanted to do, and did it.
C) It probably is not fair to yourself to question you life, at a time like this.

I can see the fact that we choose things that we wish we did different when we get to the consequences later. Hind sight is 20/20. We all want our cake and to eat it too. Perhaps we generally favor the short term though, and down play the cost for later, since consequences are a long time in the future?

I guess I'm wondering why we don't take the bigger picture more seriously. You are going to have to pay: at some point. Do you really want to defer that to the end of your life? Under the best circumstances, with failing health everything is very stress full, confusing and slightly addled. It really is not the time to decide pay the price of regretful decisions.

So decide everyday, what matters, and choose that, whatever the cost. Don't play games with yourself, and others. If you are not sure what it is you might regret then, you really should work on that, or it's gonna get messy. To achieve peace, you will have to own and accept your choices, including the ones you avoided.

That will certainly add to life and liveliness now and later, you will become more consistent as a person, and not have to live with regret and guilt.