No More Birthdays
Brief clarification: none of my loved ones have died recently, I just saw a sad show.
At some point, every one of your loved ones will have their last moment with you. There will be a last moment you share with every single person you love—at least, in this life. Many of them are people who you’ve already seen for a final time—grandparents, parents, old friends.
After you’ve seen these people for the final time, you’ll wish you could see them just one more time. You’ll wish for more of those casual dinners, those light-hearted conversations that you took for granted. You’d be willing to give up quite a lot to have one more dinner, one just like a dinner you skipped. Just as water is more valuable to one dying of thirst, so too are moments with your loved ones more valuable when those moments have ceased.
Even before your loved ones are gone, unless they die suddenly, they will change dramatically. Many of your loved ones might die of Alzheimer’s, slowly losing all their memories, till eventually they can’t even remember your name or who you are. Even for those who are still alive, you’ll often wish for more experiences like those that you took for granted just a decade prior.
Most of my grandparents are alive, but not all of them are. Both of my biological grandfathers are dead. The grandfathers on my father’s side died a bit before I turned 13. He was a very good grandfather. Sitting here writing this, I’d give up quite a lot just to spend an afternoon with him. Just to spend one more of the afternoons that I took for granted when he was alive.
Cherish your loved ones. Appreciate them for how great they really are. See your time with them the way you will see it when they’re no longer around, as something of inestimable value. This has all been said before by others, but it’s the type of thing that’s worth remembering. For it is not that we overvalue our loved ones when they’re dead, but that we undervalue them when they’re alive.
In particular I think it's good to imagine they have died and then what you'd want to do or say.
Now imagine that there is no one. Just you. In a sense this is true of all of us. Our connections with others have limits. Death defines our limits in time, but there are physical and mental limits always. However close we are to our chosen friends and partners, and even our closest relatives, we are not them and we cannot come closer than a certain point. By imagining there is nobody I find surprise, joy, energy and connection in every interaction. But that could also be just because I currently live on the W coast of Ireland:-)