"Live as if you were living a second time, and as though you had acted wrongly the first time."
- Viktor Frankl, Man's Search for Meaning.
Almost five years ago, when I was kicked out of my home I was invited into another one for a year. An old man named Ray who was 40 years sober and whose wife had passed six years earlier let me into his home. He gave me his daughter’s old room.
He had an old dog
named Colby that had smelly ears. When I once made a comment about the dog’s
smelly ears, Ray cleaned them the very next day, though I know the smelly ears
had never bothered him. Ray played ping pong on bad knees, was an expert diver,
and loved sassing anyone around. He’s 84 now and he’s dying.
Since I met
him, he’s had a heart attack or stroke, or both. He’s had kidney failure more
than once. He’s been to the hospital several times for a multitude of health
problems. He hates hospitals and tells off the doctors and nurses whenever he
goes. He’s very ornery sometimes.
Yet, every
time he’s gone to the hospital, my mom who has taken care of him these past few
years, always asks him, “Ray, are you going to die?” He’ll look at her point
blank and say, “No.” And each time he hasn’t. He comes home and within a few
days is back to his normal routine, which is mostly sitting on his La-Z-Boy all
day watching CSI and various other crime shows. Those are his favorite. He
thinks everything else is trash.
These past
two months he’s been in and out of the hospital a few different times and has stayed
longer than normal. This is the first time he’s ever asked to die. This is the
first time when my mom asked him if he’s going to die that he looks at her and
doesn’t say a word. We just found out he probably has less than two weeks left.
I didn’t
know Ray is in his youth. I do know that one of the funniest jokes he’s ever
said was about being a fireball when he was 70 (referring to sex). I know that
his family isn’t the most fond of him and I’m sure they have their reasons, but
it’s none of mine or my mom’s business. I only lived with him for a year, but I
will be eternally thankful for him and his home and the help he’s given to me
and my family.
I’ve
watched Ray’s decline for the past few years. I watched as that first summer he’d
dive into the pool and do two laps. Then the next year it was one lap. Then
eventually he could get halfway. Until finally, he couldn’t dive or even swim anymore.
Ping pong hasn’t happened in years, due to his bad knees. He loves to have
people sit next to him, but he can’t tolerate anyone for too long. Mostly I
think he likes knowing someone is there, but not having to talk to them. I know
he was incredibly lonely before I moved in.
Since then,
my mom and her boyfriend moved in. My mom’s best friend is temporarily moved in
while her new house get repairs. My cousin and uncle have both found haven
there as well. Ray’s house is homey and I’m sure it’s completely because of his
late wife. He likes having people there. He had four children, a full house,
and he seems to enjoy sitting in his den listening to the people in the house.
They also greatly contribute in taking care of him.
As I’ve
watched Ray decline, I’ve always wondered what he was living for. Since I’ve
known him, he’s seemed very determined to make it to 100, though he has no
interest in what’s going on in the world, or even many people’s lives. He once
seen this 103 year old Asian man on the news do a marathon, and Ray tried to start
working out again so he could do that too. At his 60th high school
reunion, which me, my mom, and my grandma attended, he was the only one who
couldn’t walk well, and afterward he seemed determined to go places more. It
mostly resulted in him falling a lot more.
All this to
say, Ray has had this strong will to live, and not just exist. For a while he
wanted to do aerobics with my mom, and she pretended to help him follow a video
because he couldn’t do any of the movements. She’d turn him away from the T.V.
and told him she would explain what to do. Then she’d make up small movements
he could do, like lifting his leg up and down. That alone was tiring for him,
but he was convinced he was improving every day and following along with
everything they did in the video. He was happy and proud when he explained to
me his “progress.”
A 2013
study in the Journal of Public Health
found that widows had a 66% increased chance of dying within the first three
months of their spouse dying. It’s been about ten years now since his wife
died. I’ve always wondered why he wanted to keep going on. Why was he so set on
living to 100? What purpose did he have still? He didn’t talk to his children,
and in the years I’ve known him, I’ve only seen one of his sons visit him
possibly 3 or 4 times. He loved his wife dearly, but when my mom started taking
care of him, he wanted to marry her. He formally asked her twice. And now, Ray
seems to have finally given up on everything. He’s lost the will to live, and I
wonder why now?
Perhaps
this question is timely for the transition of a new year, which is often associated
with new beginnings. Ever since I’ve been watching Ray give up, I’ve been
thinking that there are three kinds of people: those who are waiting to live,
those are waiting to die, and those who are actually living. I don’t think
enough of us fit into this last category.
I think
that age may play a role in these different kinds of people, but it’s not the
most important one. There are people who spend their lives living in fear of
getting hurt that they never really live. There are people who have been hurt
so much that they just want to die. But what does it take to be the kind of
person who is unafraid? The person who not only wants to live, but is living.
In Viktor
Frankl’s Man’s Search for Meaning, he
describes his time in a concentration camp. Though everyone endured harsh
conditions, limited food rations, and intensive labor, there was a difference
between those who survived and those who gave up. He says those who gave up
were often dead within a day. Those who survived were the ones who still had
purpose. It could be family outside of the camp, or maybe even within it. It
could be a man’s lifelong manuscript. Work that they were waiting to go back
to. Each survivor had the will to go on because they felt they still had a
purpose.
In “ThePsychology of Purpose,” the John Templeton Foundation describes purpose as, “a
stable and generalized intention to accomplish something that is at once
personally meaningful and at the same time leads to productive engagement with
some aspect of the world beyond the self.” Purpose can be found from personal
experiences to “affairs far removed,” such as learning about a problem going on
in the world and wanting to help. Many religions offer purpose, and “love of
friends and family, and desire for meaningful work are common sources of
purpose.”
Purpose is
both personal and external, because it is related to the bigger world around
us. Frankl went on to assist in the development of the first and most widely
used standardized survey of purpose, the “Purpose in Life” test. For each of
the 20 questions, you must answer with a number 1-5 to determine what is most
true for you right now. The test explains, “A score of less than 50 may indicate
that you are experiencing an “existential void,” a lack of meaning or purpose
in your life right now.”
I took the
test and scored an 86, which I think is pretty good. As I was answering each
question, I thought about how at different times of my life I would’ve answered
these questions differently. For the past year and a half, my life has been
feeling like it’s on an upward path, and I am so excited for all to come. I’m excited
to finally, finally finish my novel (I’m so very close and work on it nearly
every day). I’m excited to find love, because I finally feel healthy and like
myself again. I dread the thought of finding a career, and am not quite excited
about that yet, but I believe it will happen eventually. I feel like my life
has meaning and purpose and is heading to even more of both.
Perhaps it’s
easy for me to feel this way at 27, unlike Ray at 84. But I know I didn’t feel
this way at 12 when my parent’s separated. I know I didn’t feel this way at 22
when I entered my depression. And I didn’t feel this way at 24 after I had been
sexually assaulted and was truly broken for a while. Life has a funny way of
going up and down, and then back up and back down again until it’s eventually
over.
Research
shows that, “About one in five high school students and one in three college
students report having a clear purpose in life. Those rates drop slightly into
midlife and more precipitously into later adulthood.” This is because purpose
is future-oriented, meaning when you think you still have a future to look
forward, you try to fill it with things you want to accomplish. Even like
something such as running a marathon at age 103.
One interesting
exception to the decline in purpose-seeking as we get older comes with “9-enders,”
which is “individuals ending a decade of life, at ages 29, 39, 49, etc.” At
these ages, people “tend to focus more on aging and meaning, and consequently,
they are more likely to report searching for purpose or experiencing a crisis
of meaning.”
Me and my
mom both have theories as to why Ray has given up now. To be honest, I’m not
particularly sad, because he has lived a long life. I remember talking to him
once about his alcoholism. He explained to me that him and his wife met in May
at a dance when they were 23. By that September they were married and stayed
married for over 50 years. They bought the house he still lives in today and
raised four kids and few dogs there.
However,
Ray was an alcoholic. He said he didn’t know how bad he was until when he was
40 years old, his wife told him that if he didn’t go to an AA meeting, she was
going to leave him. He said he’d go, but had no intention to stop drinking. She
drove him there, and after his first meeting he never drank another drop again.
He told me he realized how horrible he had been to her, but that he spent the
rest of their lives making it up to her. To me, that seemed like a purpose.
He’s still
been going to AA meetings since I’ve known him. I think that talking to and
helping others there has also been part of his purpose. But I also think there’s
been a bigger purpose at play that he doesn’t realize, which is God’s purpose.
Whether you
are a believer or not, this is what I theorize. My mom hasn’t had her own home
since I was 12. She spent a time being homeless, and since then has always
lived in someone else’s house, including now with Ray. Now, she has a Master’s
degree and is a therapist for the homeless. One of her purposes in life is to
buy a house. She’s always wanted this since I was little. She’s been saving up
to do so, and she’s close enough to do so this year. If Ray hadn’t opened up
his home to my mom, I think that goal would’ve been much farther away, because she
wouldn’t have been able to save like she has been.
Living at
Ray’s for a year allowed me to save and get on my feet again to then rent an
apartment. It’s been helping my mom. And everyone who has entered his home has
felt safe, welcome, and at peace. Ray’s late wife is the reason his home is so
cozy and welcoming, but who he is now is the reason it’s stayed that way. When
I lived there, Ray never questioned what I did or where I went. He was thankful
for my presence and allowed me to feel free and wanted. He’s not judgmental and
has opened his doors to many who have had doors closed by others.
But I know
Ray misses his wife, and now it’s time for him to join her soon. I don’t think
it’s a coincidence that he’s leaving us the year that my mom is within her goal
of buying a house. We are losing him and his home, but I think it’s allowing
another home to open its doors too. Perhaps, Ray’s stubborn will to live was
part of God’s plan until he fulfilled his final purpose. Then again, this is
all theory. We can never know why certain people stay with us for so long and
others leave us too soon.
All I know
is that for a while now, Ray has been waiting to die. He has stopped living and it's probably because he believes he has no purpose anymore.
When I was
younger, I felt like I was waiting to live. I was so scared of so many things,
and when I first traveled abroad, it was one of the scariest things I’d ever
done. I didn’t want to be held back by my own irrational fears, so I did
something that was completely out of my comfort zone across the world with a
whole group of people I didn’t know.
When I was
depressed, I felt like I was waiting to die. Nothing gave me hope or true joy
anymore. I was seeking and seeking, but kept coming up dry. It was one of the
hardest things I’ve ever had to come out of, but I did eventually.
Right now,
in this moment, I feel like I am living. Truly, happily, genuinely living because I have so much to live for. And
it’s so great.
What can I
offer to anyone about what it takes to live? I have no list for you, no
guideline to follow. I can only say that life will do terrible things to you,
and I’m sure it has already. But those that live, they come back to life
because they have a reason to. As Viktor realized, they have a purpose. If you
know what yours is, or maybe even if you don’t but trust that God has a purpose
for you, then you can keep going. As you work towards this purpose, then you
are truly living.
Sources:
I'm glad you're happy kiddo.
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