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Monday, March 01, 2010

Death and Balloons

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CC is listening to: Nothing right now

Growing up I enjoyed balloons as much as any other child. The store-bought ones never seemed to be as pretty as the ones that were sold by a street vendor. Or if you saw the balloon inflated in front of your eyes it didn’t seem to be quite as mysterious as the ones that were already floating in air.

I remember how much of a struggle it was to convince my parents to get me a balloon—they didn’t think it was practical, and I understood why even at that age… and still, there was just always something so mystical about a balloon.

I’ve had balloons that I’ve let go, and I’ve held on to balloons until they lost their helium.

It was kind of sad watching a balloon slowly lose its ability to float…first it would kind of hover at eye level, and then float lower and lower until it would touch the ground—first tippytoeing around, as if it found the floor too hot, and then eventually it would rest on its side. Every time I saw a balloon reach that state, my mind would wonder for it, “What if?”

On the other hand, letting a balloon go was kind of bittersweet. The moment you make that decision to let go, and you feel that string slipping away from your hands, part of you—the voice that echoes your parents’ warning when they first handed you that balloon, “Don’t let go!”—hesitates. And then there’s that sharp second of regret when the string finally leaves your fist, because this is when you fully realize that you’re not getting it back.

But then you watch it zoom up into the air, like it can’t get to the sky fast enough—and you really do feel happy for it. You feel its excitement, you feel its optimism. You can almost hear it say, “I’m free!” It’s so thrilled that it doesn’t even turn around to thank you. As an adult I find it difficult to imagine that kind of happiness, the kind that would even make you forget to observe any level of social courtesy. But even so, you kind of don’t mind that it doesn’t thank you.

A friend of mine—her mother was in a terrible accident a couple of months ago and has been in a coma since then. Very recently the time came to honor the wishes stated in her living will. They’ve taken her off life support, and this week they’ll be taking her home, to take care of her until she passes away.

Today as I thought about my friend, I wondered if maybe her mom felt like a balloon sometimes. If maybe a string was all that was keeping her from zooming up into the sky.

I don’t know yet what it’s like to lose a parent, and I dread the day when it comes. So I don’t think it’s fair for me to even try to comfort her by saying, “I know how you feel,” or even to say, “I can imagine how you feel,” because I think that kind of pain would be unimaginable.

But I’d like to hope that when the moment comes that her mom does say goodbye to this earth, that it will be a moment of pure excitement and optimism for her—that she zooms up into the air, her spirit saying, “I’m free!”

And I hope that her family will be so happy for her that they won’t mind that she doesn’t turn around to say “Thank you” just yet.

Posted by Unknown | 7:53 AM | 1 Comments |

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