What the Loss of a Distant Relative Taught Me About Life
We all have those family members who we see over the holidays, spend about 5 minutes talking to and move on with our lives, not giving much thought about our interactions or relationship with them. That family member of mine was my aunt’s husband. I never had much of a relationship with him, but every time I saw him he was always the same: kind, helpful and subtly hilarious. When I learned that this family member finally passed away after spending months battling cancer, most of my sadness came from imagining the pain my aunt and cousins were going through. It wasn’t until I attended his funeral that I realized how important this person, and his presence were to the world.
Even though my interactions with this family member were small, he always left me seeing the brighter, better side of life. From what I knew of him, he was a man that never tried to be anything he wasn’t, did what he loved and sought to enjoy life. I don’t think this person ever strove to be the best, richest or the smartest person in the world. I don’t think he ever wanted to prove anything to anyone, other than to himself. I also think that these are the characteristics of a kind, humble and truly good human being and these characteristics are hard to find in people nowadays.
Our world has become a flurry of people trying to get the approval of others through things like physical appearance, money and a dope Instagram. I’ll admit that I am a huge culprit of this lifestyle. So when I attended a funeral of a man who didn’t have all of these things, yet had people who deeply loved and adored him, it made me stop and think; why do we do the things we do and what is really going to matter at the end of our lives? As much as we want to believe it, the fact is that our Instagram isn’t going to matter at the end of it all, and neither is all the money we make or any of the academic degrees we get. What’s going to count is the relationships we foster during our time here and how we make people feel. My late family member seemed to really understand this. He seemed to know that his relationships with friends and family were the most valuable things he could take with him. He also spent his life doing what he loved and through following his passion, he not only found joy in his own life, but helped people find joy in theirs.
This loss has made me stop and think about the type of person I want to be and how I want to be remembered. In fact, it is a wakeup call for me to stop worrying so much about the things I can’t take to the grave and to start focusing more on my relationships, as well as spend more time doing the things that I’m passionate about. Maybe if we do more of this, we can all become a little happier, kinder and overall better human beings who help the people around us become better too. Because at the end of the day, I want to be remembered for how loving I was, not how much money I had in my bank account or how many Instagram followers I had.