A young man died in our community this week. A terrible accident, severe burns, and death came soon after. The young man was friends with the son of one of our hospice chaplains. Our bereavement team of chaplains and social workers attended the assembly when the principal compassionately shared the news of the young man’s death with the student body. Silence. The air was heavy and still. We stayed after to sit with individuals and small groups who wanted to talk.
In the midst of the tears and shock and denial and sadness, I noticed that the “What If ” Monster had entered the auditorium. He snuck in quietly but soon he had somehow multiplied himself and had joined every group and sat next to every individual.
“What if I had been with him? What if he had been found earlier? What if I had called him that day? What if his parents hadn’t divorced? What if his Grandma was still living? What if I hadn’t said that? What if I had known him better? What if I had told him how much his friendship meant to me? What if he walks through the door right now? What if this is all a dream? What if he had more money? What if he had changed schools? What if he hadn’t changed schools? What if he hadn’t played basketball? What if he had joined the band? What if he stayed in youth group? What if…? What if…?”
None of these exact questions were asked but a multitude of variations swirled in every conversation. The “What If” Monster’s jaws opened wide, inviting us all to be swallowed up and lost in the never ending pit of futile, wishful thinking. When we feel most out of control and most nearest to despair, the “What If” Monster is ready and waiting to be our best friend and scare us into paralysis.
I recently read The Maltese Falcon, a detective novel featuring the private investigator, Spade, and a motley crew of suspects, fiends and friends who cross his path in his pursuit of the truth.
I stopped short mid-novel when I remembered that my favorite author, Paul Auster, lifts a section from this book in his book Oracle Night. Auster tends to write about writers who are writing books about writers (it’s much less confusing in narrative form!). At the heart of each narrative lies the delicate question of plot: How do the dance partners of chance and will choreograph our life’s drama? What he finds is story, and that story often has story after story nesting within each story, and each story usually begins with a “What if….”
And so in The Maltese Falcon story, detective Spade pauses to tell a story to a suspect about a man named, Flitcraft. Spade had been hired to find him after he disappeared from Tacoma on his way to a luncheon, leaving a wife and children and successful career in real estate. Spade catches up with Flitcraft 5 years after his disappearance.
“Here’s what happened to him. Going to lunch he passed an office building that was being put up–just the skeleton. A beam or something fell 8-10 stories down and smacked the sidewalk alongside him. It brushed pretty close to him, but didn’t touch him, though a piece of the sidewalk was chipped off and flew up and hit his cheek. It only took a piece of skin off, but he still had the scar when I saw him. He rubbed it with his finger–well, affectionately–when he told me about it…He felt like somebody had taken the lid off life and let him look at the works.”
His life had been orderly, reasonable, and seemingly in control to that point, and he was shaken that chance could intersect one’s plot trajectory so suddenly and haphazardly and change everything. He decides to take the reins and change his life suddenly and haphazardly himself; live out his own “What if…” scenario. However, when detective Spade catches up to him, Flitcraft has basically fallen into the same life he had before: middle class career, wife, baby, and golf. Detective Spade comments:
“I don’t think he even knew that he had settled back naturally into the same groove he had jumped out of in Tacoma. But that’s the part of it I always liked. He adjusted himself to beams falling, and then no more of them fell, and he adjusted himself to them not falling.”
I am struck by how the “What If” Monster convinces Flitcraft to stop living his life, which causes pain and suffering to all those who are connected to his life narrative. The “What If” Monster wants us to believe that we are not resilient enough to deal with whatever happens in life. We can so quickly and easily be lured into living life looking backwards in the vain hope that we can control outcomes instead of becoming masters at adapting to outcomes. Asking “What if?” and even living out a “What if…” scenario can never lead us to utter certainty nor equip is to control when and how the shadow of death dogs us.
A friend and frequent commenter shared a poem with me from the late Professor Charles L. Black, Jr. This poem titled “Letting Go” was included in his obituary in the NYTimes and seems an appropriate response to the “What If” Monsters lurking in the corners of all our lives.
“In process of letting go the breath,
Moment for relieving your eyes’ ache,
You see bark patterns, a child’s hand
Catching and throwing, next to the tree.
You have to relive all your days
To receive the gift of surprise
At words you didn’t quite hear, once riding.
Do what you can; everything will come
In memory if never in experience.
Revisit, retell. Love sounds deeper
Out of time than in time. Act love
imperfectly; you will remember love itself.”
Instead of leaning into the lures of the “What If” Monster, I will act love imperfectly; for I will remember love itself.
Categories: Aging, Disability, Death, Dying
