How Much Was Your Life Worth?
Musings on a life well lived
Last month my uncle passed away. He was only sixty-six, never smoked, drank only socially, was in relatively good health, and most importantly he was retired, relaxed, and content with life. But one morning, he suddenly collapsed and went into a coma. Scans revealed two heavy bleeds in his brain and he never regained consciousness, only to leave us forever a week later. It was the saddest day of my life, after the death of my wife several years ago.
I grew up in a broken family and my uncle, my mother’s youngest brother, played a big part in my childhood. He was a role model. I remember him as the gentlest and the kindest man but he was also one of the most capable people I ever knew. I felt like breaking down and crying like a little girl. (I am a grown man with a deep voice and a rough demeanor.) Thanks to Covid-19 I couldn’t even go back to my home country for his funeral.
This got me thinking of my own mortality and the age-old question of the meaning of life. More specifically, what is the value of life?
The loss is to the living, not the dead
When someone dies, what we mourne is mostly our loss of them, rather than any loss of theirs. This is not true enough in the case of my uncle. He was probably the most decent human I’ve ever met. Whatever you believe happens after death, there’s nothing negative you can think of in the context of what death means to my uncle. If you believe in life after death, there is no way you can imagine someone as good as he would be born in a bad place. If you believe death is the end of everything, then there is nothing to feel sad about his life — he lived a full life, raised three great kids who are now decent adults, did a world of good to everybody around him, and left, with minimal suffering.
On the other hand, to those of us who were left behind, the loss is immeasurable. It is not just his immediate family, his three kids, my now widowed aunt, his siblings, us nephews and nieces that are reeling, there are many who are genuinely distraught that he’s gone.
Many people come and go in our lifetime, but only a few leave a gaping hole when they leave like he did, and I started thinking why.
What is the true loss we feel when someone is gone?
What exactly is the loss we feel when someone leaves us. Is it just what we used to get from them — what we needed them for? Help? Advice? Companionship? Maybe. But for some, I think it’s much more.
As a child, I used to eagerly await my uncle’s visits. As a four or five-year-old, I have memories of him making a fist and me wrestling to open his hand. That was a game of ours. Then as a ten or twelve-year-old, I used to await his arrival with a chessboard ready to play. Much later, when I was studying, he spent many late nights with me, teaching me economics and accounting. (He was an accountant by profession.) I left for many exams in my student life from his house instead of my own.
The day I got married, it was he who drove me to the church. As a father, I still had to lean on him. One day, while visiting my home country, my daughter got sick and there was a shortage of the medicine that was prescribed. My uncle drove around for hours late in the night, going from pharmacy to pharmacy looking for it.
When my wife died, he was there too, with his consoling hand on my shoulder. After that funeral, (I hate funerals) I walked up to my uncle and aunt to thank them, and they said, “Don’t say thank you. You don’t have to!” I think that there is the real definition of the loss I am feeling. That is, the knowledge that I owe him so much, and I will never be able to repay him!
How many feel that loss?
I know I am not the only person feeling this deep kind of loss at my uncle’s death. Of course, he was a great father to his three children. But he helped out many of his nieces and nephews as well, not just me. Then he went out of his way to help out his neighbors in their hour of need too. At work, he was a mentor to a lot of people, few of them reached higher levels than even he did. He also spent a short period as a teacher. None of his students have anything but deep gratitude towards his extreme dedication. I am sure many of these people are feeling this deep loss just like me.
It makes me wonder when the day comes for me to finally leave this earth, how many people apart from my own children would feel my loss? Is that a good measure of what my life was worth?
The greatest gift you can give is your time
The most valuable gift I received from my uncle is his time — the time he played with me when I was a child; the time he tutored me when I was a student; and the time he spent driving me around when I was in need of help. It was not time he had to spare. He gave me the time he had to do many other things for himself or his family. Then he found the time to do his things and the things for his family as well.
Time is the greatest gift you can give — to your children, to your family, to your friends, to your neighbors, and even to total strangers.
Examples are worth much more than advice
The only piece of advice I remember my uncle giving me was to be patient. I remember that well because those were the last words he spoke to me. It was just a few weeks before his passing, he was on the phone, telling me to be patient and hold my tongue. I have been thrown quite a few challenges in my own life and I am dealing with one of those these days and it was that he was talking about.
After he passed away, I tried to remember what other advice he’d given me over the years, and I couldn’t really think of many. He was not much of the kind to give advice. Instead, when there is a need, he’d be a facilitator. He’d say “how about I do this, so you can take care of that.”
I can think of many things I took him as an example. I copied most of my parenting strategies from him. I saw in him that you can be a goofy friend to your kids and still have their utmost respect. He showed that strength lies in calmness, not in aggression, like a cliff standing against a storm.
While advice can be invaluable at times, examples are hard to ignore. If there were any examples in him I chose to ignore before, now he’s gone, I’m compelled to re-evaluate.
When someone valuable leaves, that is an invitation for others to step up
Life is like a big organization. When someone important leaves, someone else has to fill in their shoes.
Sometimes when someone leaves nobody cares. Some even might say “good riddance!” But if you truly made an impact, there is going to be a sad farewell. If you are leaving behind big shoes to fill, that is an invitation for someone else to step up. It’s a nudge for someone else to be a better person, perhaps even a better person than you were.
The amount of money you made, the size of the house you lived in, or the value of the car you drove wouldn’t matter in the end. How you will be measured is based on how you positively impacted others and how many you influenced.
And the debts they owed you that they could never repay? They have to repay that to someone else — do the same good you did to them to someone else.
There are few of those who live forever…in others
Some people, like my uncle, when they leave, they leave a lot of themselves behind in others. It could be the values and mannerisms others copy from them. Or it could be things simple as their anecdotes, jokes, or recipes. Long after they are gone, “they” will be repeated probably through generations. If your life was a truly worthy life, those after you will benefit from you, even if they never really knew you.
