City of Angels

Maggie: I wanted him to live.

Seth: He is living. Just not the way you think.

Maggie: I don't believe in that.

Seth: Some things are true whether you believe in them or not.

"City of Angels"

I thought we had more time.

Dark Center of the Universe

"Everyone's life ends but no one ever completes it."

- Modest Mouse

Another Earth

“Within our lifetimes, we have marveled as biologist have managed to look at ever smaller and smaller things, and astronomers have looked further and further into the dark night sky, back in time and now in space. But maybe the most mysterious of all is neither the small nor the large. It’s us, up close. Could we even recognize ourselves? And if we did, would we even know ourselves? What would we say to ourselves? What would we learn from ourselves? What would would we really like to see if we could stand outside ourselves and look at us?”

- "Another Earth" 

Donations

Back in March of last year, I wrote about a letter I received from a recipient of Steve's tissue donation. I received another letter a few months later. I never wrote about that one.

The night Steve died, I sat on the phone at midnight with a social worker on the other end of the line to approve Steve's tissue donations. She said it could wait until morning but I knew there was going to be no sleeping that night. During the next week the only sleep I did get was with the use of sleeping pills. And even those would only work for about four hours at a time.

The social worker was kind, supportive, and continued to repeat things for me as I tried to translate her words into some sort of meaning through my fog of shock. I remember her explaining why Steve's organs couldn't be used but his tissues could. I remember giving permission for tissues that couldn't be used to help patients to be used in laboratories, hopefully helping future patients with breakthroughs in medical science. I remember her explaining that at two years I would receive a summation of Steve's donations and how they were used. How, tissue donations could be used up to five years after being harvested.

I couldn't imagine, at the time, what two years later would look like. What two years later would feel like. I still can't imagine what three more years from now will look or feel like.

I know I didn't cry as hard over the second letter I received from a recipient as I did for the first letter. And I didn't cry as hard over this summation report as I did for the second letter. Each time I received something, I would call family members and read it to them. At each reading I thought "this time I can get through it without sobbing." Each time I was wrong. Try reading this excerpt aloud without crying:

Stephen's donation consisted of orthopedic tissues, which are used to hasten recovery in individuals suffering from bone or spine disease or injuries. Many bone grafts can be generated from one tissue donor. In the case of Stephen's gift our donation records indicate the creation of numerous bone grafts which have been and will continue to be used to perform reconstructive surgery, spinal fusions, and oral surgery. Our records indicate that a surgery occurred in February 2001 in Massachusetts that enhanced the life of a male patient, and a surgery occurred in March 2011 in Pennsylvania that enhanced the life of a male patient. Also, grafts have been distributed throughout the country to states such as Arkansas, Arizona, California, Colorado, Washington D.C., Iowa, Illinois, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, North Carolina, Nebraska, New Jersey, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Utah, Virginia, Washington and West Virginia.

We do not have all the implant information, but clearly Stephen's donation has made and will continue to make a remarkable and widespread impact on the lives of many others in need.

I am so proud of my husband to have the foresight and desire to help others when he died. I am so proud of that heartbroken, shocked, scared, and lonely wife who sat on her back porch, phone in hand at midnight saying "Yes. Please. Help as many people as you can. Start right now."

David Rakoff

"Writer Melissa Bank said it best: 'The only proper answer to 'Why me?' is 'Why not you?' The universe is anarchic and doesn't care about us, and unfortunately, there's no greater rhyme or reason as to why it would be me. And since there is no answer as to why me, it's not a question I feel really entitled to ask.
...
You can't win all the contests and then lose at one contest and say, 'Why am I not winning this contest as well?' It's random. So truthfully, again, do I wish it weren't me? Absolutely. I still can't make that logistic jump to thinking there's a reason why it shouldn't be me."

Interview with writer, David Rakoff.

You Become What You Believe

Saudade

Saudade ~ a unique Galician-Portuguese word that has no immediate translation in English. Saudade describes a deep emotional state of nostalgic longing for an absent something or someone that one loves. It often carries a repressed knowledge that the object of longing might never return. It's related to the feelings of longing, yearning.

Saudade has been described as a "...vague and constant desire for something that does not and probably cannot exist ... a turning towards the past or towards the future."A stronger form of saudade may be felt towards people and things whose whereabouts are unknown, such as old ways and sayings; a lost lover who is sadly missed; a faraway place where one was raised; loved ones who have died; feelings and stimuli one used to have; and the faded, yet golden memories of youth. Although it relates to feelings of melancholy and fond memories of things/people/days gone by, it can be a rush of sadness coupled with a paradoxical joy derived from acceptance of fate and the hope of recovering or substituting what is lost by something that will either fill in the void or provide consolation.

Saudade was once described as "the love that remains" after someone is gone. Saudade is the recollection of feelings, experiences, places or events that once brought excitement, pleasure, well-being, which now triggers the senses and makes one live again. It can be described as an emptiness, like someone (e.g., one's children, parents, sibling, grandparents, friends, pets) or something (e.g., places, things one used to do in childhood, or other activities performed in the past) should be there in a particular moment is missing, and the individual feels this absence. In Portuguese, 'tenho saudades tuas', translates as 'I have saudades of you' meaning 'I miss you', but carries a much stronger tone. In fact, one can have 'saudades' of someone whom one is with, but have some feeling of loss towards the past or the future.

* Definition pulled from Wikipedia.