Page 55 - THE ENDLESS WAVE | Skateboarding, Death & Spirituality

THE ENDLESS WAVE | PART ONE
While You Can Still Push
Today we buried a 99-year-old woman. This is not a common occurrence. Most people don’t live this long, and oftentimes, people who live to al- most 100 have outlived most of their friends and immediate family. But what made this burial even more of a unique experience was that the woman lost her husband in 1976. This means she was in her mid-50s when she ex- perienced this tragedy.
When I was first at the grave taking a GPS (so that future visitors could locate it), I met up with the daughter. She first said to me that her mother had wanted to die. The daughter was absolutely adamant that her mother wanted to depart this world. I knew that was a bittersweet admission, which is not uncommon for me to hear. “My mother was the most intelligent person I’ve met,” she re- marked. “She knew that her time had come, and I am glad she’s on her way to see my dad.”
As I stared at the husband’s gravestone, I started to think. This woman went more than half her life without her spouse. My first thoughts were, “Wow, what a huge loss, How on earth did her family cope? It must have been so ter- ribly awful for her.” I thought about how lonely she might have been. I won- dered about finances. I am pretty sure you thought the same thing. But the reality of her life, thanks to some very illuminating eulogies from her son and grandchildren, was completely different from what I expected.
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