Aunty M died a while ago. She was in her late-70s. The funeral was a quiet affair.
Her husband cried softly where he sat. I saw tears in my wife’s eyes. The choir played the songs Aunty M had loved. And yet the eulogies felt like they could have said more. The stories felt incomplete. This was someone who had lived life so fully.
I sat there and thought of the evenings I would pass her by, still seeing, in her elegant face, the 25-year-old that had once been serenaded by suitors.
As the rituals progressed, I wondered: Why did I never ask her what was life was like when she was young. Everything I know of her comes from my wife, who still speaks of the gracious parties Aunty M hosted, the gatherings at festivals and holidays, and the work she enjoyed for so many years.
I didn’t ask because speaking was difficult for Aunty M, as most things were, by the time I first met her. She had a sense of humour, but one had to wait for it. She moved slowly, and spoke more slowly still. I told myself I would find the time to sit down and really talk to her, but perhaps it is patience that was in short supply.
As opposed to that, my wife turned up for Aunty M often. They spent their time together sitting on a bench and talking. The older woman would tell stories of who she had been, and of her wonderful husband, who helped her get through each day as she struggled with arthritis and with dementia.
He helped her out of the house and to the nearby community spaces. This was something she looked forward to because it meant she could still meet people and feel like part of the world that buzzed beyond the walls of her home. It was something that her husband looked forward to as well, because sometimes it meant he could step away and simply sit in silence, or engage with other people.
I don’t know all that my wife and Aunty M talked about but I would often see them quite animated. I knew she could crack a joke because people around her would often laugh.
No matter how much pain she was in, or how exasperated my wife was with work or life or me, their time together seemed to rejuvenate them both. I think what they treasured was precisely what I resisted: the chance to slow down, in a situation that asked only for my presence.
I am always in a hurry. I wish now that I had made the time to pause. Here was a woman willing to listen, and give of her time and care. I can tell how much that meant to my wife from how bereft she is. There will be no more evenings of stories, jokes and no-stakes kindness, with her neighbourhood friend.
They knew a last time would come. It arrived, as these things tend to do, with no warning.
Amid all this, it has been unsettling to read Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals (2021) by Oliver Burkeman. If a person lives to 80, Burkeman notes, that’s a total of just 4,000 weeks. Factoring in genetics and other vulnerabilities to which I am susceptible, I suspect I may live to between 69 and 72 years. This means I have 782 to 939 weeks left.
I could be wrong. But life is ridiculously short.
Over time, I may become the person who walks slowly and speaks haltingly. The one whose pace can test another’s kindness. The person whom others may find it hard to make time for.
Somewhere around you, someone’s sentence is taking a long time to arrive. You will feel a small urge to finish it for them and move on to more pressing things. Don’t.
(Charles Assisi is co-founder of Founding Fuel. He can be reached on assisi@foundingfuel.com. The views expressed are personal)
