walking the Valley

I often think: "oh, to be young again!" It must be easy, being 24, facing life with all its possibilities and adventures, knowing you have all the time in world to do stuff, mess it up, try again, rinse, repeat. It must be easy having all that energy and enthusiasm that life has only just begun to wear away, layers of disappointment and heartache between you and jaded middle age. It must be wonderful waking up and appreciating that today, after work, you'll hang out with your buddies at the bar or take your kids to their first baseball game or tinker with your favourite hobby. It must be easy... but really, only if you have the foresight to appreciate what you've got at the time.

But, being 24, facing death... that can't be easy. Knowing you'll never blow out 30 candles or be a dirty old man ogling young girls in the mall. Knowing your kids won't remember you outside the picture frames of their lives, because you'll be gone before they make any formative memories. It can't be easy lying in a hospital bed, your once strong body turning against itself, eating you inside out, surrounded by well-meaning friends who've started to visit more often than they ever did. Knowing those same friends - with their forced jocularity, quickly averted gazes and worry lines - are here to keep vigil with you until you close your eyes and just don't open them again.

I can't empathise with facing death; hell, I can barely sympathise. I've never walked down that path, never even contemplated it with any real seriousness. At 24, Ross (LilBro's good buddy from before their voices changed) was dragged kicking and screaming into the Valley. He leaves behind a wife (for whom he worked so hard) and two children (3 years and 6 months) for whom his entire heart was reserved. He leaves behind grieving friends who are too young to have contemplated mortality with anything more than a passing thought. He leaves behind a a life that, though unfulfilled, was yet brimming over.

Yes, to be young again but only with the wisdom of age and the gift of time.