The Last Reflections of a Dying Man

This is What They Taught Me

Somewhere between black and white exists every color you could ever imagine. From vibrant reds to soft, soothing blues. The yellows that lift your spirits and remind you of the sun, or daisies, and the yellows that remind you of vomit. They're all there, stuck between these two unextraordinary opposites.
It's much the same, I find, in life. Somewhere between two relatively insignificant events lies an entire life. From the moment you are thrust into the world, a squawling infant crying in outrage at being alive, to the moment of death, you do one thing: you live. And that's nothing you can ever take for granted.
I know of colors, believe me, and I know of life. I have endured and enjoyed, cherished and cursed, every moment of my own. And there have been enough to go around. I am old now. So very old. I cannot, in all the time I may have left to me, comprehend the vast differences between myself. How I was twenty years ago, fifty years ago. How I was when I was five years old, kicking up dirt after school with my friends in the narrow Boston alleyways. These people are foreign to me. Unimaginable, frankly.
Yet I know them. I know of all their intricacies, the complicated thought behind the simple man. I know their joy and their pain, their love and their hate. I know all that they know, and remember what little they can each remember. They did not know anything, in the end. But I know it all, for I have learned from them.
I learned from the five year old that life is fun. It is, in its essence, enjoyment. Innocent and simple fun is to be had around every corner if I am brave enough to go and seek it out. I learned that I have my best fun when I am surrounded by my best friends.
The surly teenager taught me that there is a whole world out there to discover. Behind every house there is a life, at the mouth of every river lies an ocean. But he also taught me that not everybody can reach those oceans. Not everybody can seek those vast horizons. But some can. The teenager taught me that the world is unjust, just as it is brilliant.
But the young man told me that that is ok. He told me that happiness does not depend on what soil lies beneath your feet, or how many different horizons you are able to gaze upon in your life. For there is love to be found around every corner, anywhere in the world. From the young man I learned love. I learned passion. I will never forget, long after the lesson is useless to me.
By the father I was taught patience. By the working man I was taught responsibility. By the husband I was taught work, far more than I ever was by my job.
The retiree taught me to let go. He taught me to look around and reflect, to take what remaining time I had and use it. Carpe diem, he said. Seize the day.
But the old man, I believe, taught me most of all. He was the one who told me to cherish and appreciate everyone and everything. He was the one who taught me to grieve more than I ever have before. To grieve over my lost wife, my absent children, my failing health. The friends I will never see again. But he also taught me to find peace. To look into the leaves on the highest trees and notice how the sunlight drips through like honey. To close my eyes and hear my grandchildren's, and my great-grandchildren's laughter echo in my ears. To watch the rain as it falls and wipes the earth clean. I learned to notice things, like how my nurse's favorite flowers are daffodils, or how that one young man makes the effort every Sunday to come and take his grandmother to church. I learned how to feel everything around me, and revel in it. After his lessons, I feel at peace.
And peace is the one thing that I will always strive towards, as long as I live.