Sometimes I wonder if the cats on my porch know they’re living on an island. Do they realize that if they walk far enough in any direction, they’ll reach the sea and that the land they have to live on is limited? Or are they just cats who besides being born here and knowing nothing different, don’t really care? They find a territory with food, shelter, some nice other cats and ideally some nice people – and that’s that? I suspect the latter, but I have no proof.
A few years ago I read Steven Pinker’s Enlightenment Now which has a chapter arguing that the phenomenon of consciousness and its still scientifically unexplained causes are not a forever mystery. He believes between what we know and the track we’re on that humans will eventually be able to explain consciousness. In his discussion, he references philosopher Thomas Nagel’s 1974 essay What Is It Like To Be A Bat? Something that has never really interested me. The point, of course is we know things about bats, but we can’t really understand how they perceive the world and what it feels like to be them.
I wonder if we really have to go as far as cats and bats – and anything else that if added to this string of animals sounds like a Dr Seuss book – to understand the limits of our understanding? How much do we really understand what it’s like to be another human?
I have a series of questions I periodically ask my kids – particularly if I have just one of them alone. “What’s it like to be Sennen/Ailyn?”, “What’s the best part of being Sennen/Ailyn?”, “What’s the hardest part of being Sennen/Ailyn?”
I spend a lot of time with my kids and I feel as though I’m tuned-in and insightful with them. As a parent, I want to address who they each are, so attunement is important. For all of that, I feel confident my perceptions aren’t complete or accurate because – among other things – they are limited and affected by my own experiences, nature, understanding and life lessons. What has been a challenge for me may not be either of my kids’ challenges. I might mistake a situation they face as dangerous – because something similar was for me, but there may well be extraneous factors that played into it. Or, I’m older, wiser and have a fully-formed frontal cortex. After 4.5 weeks with two thirteen-year-old boys, I came to realize there’s a LOT to be said about the fully-formed frontal cortex.
In short, the hardest part of trying to be a good parent is the inherent limitation to understanding another person mixed with the fact that we don’t even fully understand ourselves.
A few days ago as I was traveling, I got a text and a voicemail that one of my father’s cousins had unexpectedly died. I met Michael a handful of times. He was always very nice and for a variety of reasons – some known, some only conjectured – he lived a fairly solitary life, or at least one without a lot of close personal relationships. I wish I could say his passing meant more to me than it did – but I barely knew him, even though our occasional encounters were very pleasant.
I’m close with Michael’s nephew, Jacob – who is both a friend and cousin. We talked the other night about his thoughts and feelings on an uncle he barely knew and wished perhaps he had known better. We discussed the various things we both knew about him, some of the seemingly easy and obvious conclusions we could draw – and then a simple thought hit me, “We don’t know what we don’t know. We don’t know what it was like to be Michael.”
I began to think about what we collectively knew and observed about Michael and questioned whether our perspectives were anywhere close to right. Our fundamental assumption was Michael had a led a fairly lonely life. Maybe there was more he wanted that despite himself, he just couldn’t manage to have. What if he had exactly what he wanted? What if he was perfectly happy? What if the things we perceived as limitations were not actually barriers for Michael? Neither of us had ever asked Michael “What is it like to be Michael?”
In truth, Jacob and I extrapolated what it might be like to be Michael based on our worldviews (which in and of themselves have overlap, but are not identical).
All of this made me think of my own recent loss of my dad.
Grief takes such different paths for different people in different moments and amid all of the circumstances of those moments and relationships. Beyond the relatively trite saying that we all handle grief differently, even for the same person, no two griefs are the same. Different relationships mean different things to us. Sometimes we just don’t have time for the grief – pull out our best Denial – and put it on the shelf for later, or in some cases stuff it down deep inside and let it turn toxic. Sometimes grief is overwhelming and sends us into anything from a forced break to a dangerous downward spiral. And some griefs are mild because for any number of reasons we’re ready to let go.
For me, I literally can’t talk about my Bubbee – really even think about her – without getting at minimum teary. She played such a critical role in my life and I was in no way ready to lose her at age twelve. That loss cut deeply because she was an important source of love and safety for me. I didn’t just lose my Bubbee, I was at a loss without her. It took me some time to understand, the tears I shed aren’t really for her – they’re for me.
Someone I respect once told me that pain, those tears are exquisite and not to undervalue them.
I don’t cry much when I think about my dad. Yes, I got emotional giving his eulogy. But I don’t well up when I think about him or reminisce. When I talk about his loss with people, I have typically explained my dad and I were good with one another, he was sick – and while of course I would have like to have enjoyed him longer – and had my kids enjoy him longer – his quality of life was diminished. That made letting go easy.
The real and less pleasant truth to admit is I’m alright without him.
There were ways in which my Bubbee’s passing left me in a lurch. Not so my dad.
I’m 48 and living my life pretty well. Yes, I have challenges and stresses – but I no longer looked to my dad for safety or security. My dad and I had successfully transitioned into a healthy adult relationship where we could enjoy one another for who we were – strengths, limitations and all. Sometimes I really valued his advice and insights. In a few departments – I sometimes thought he was taking crazy pills and preferred to leave certain topics to the side. I’m sure I fell short in a few departments as well. It just didn’t matter – we were past needing each other to be anything in particular. There was just love.
Precisely because of this, his leaving has been okay for me. Also because of this, the moments I cry aren’t for him – because he’s just fine now – but they are for me and how I will sometimes miss the active feeling of that love. And if I’m really honest, sometimes I cry at the relief of not having to watch him decline further or struggle with his fear of dying and mortality. One of the trickiest and most exhausting parts of my dad’s dying months was broaching the fact that he might not get out of the hospital and if he did, he might not have long. Even worse, it came in drips and stages and drops and pieces and ups and downs. Helping my dad confront the reality of his situation was like lovingly, gently wrestling a crocodile.
So I occasionally cry from the sheer relief of no longer having to be that person and the mild resentment that I did.
All of this to say, funerals are for the living; we cry for ourselves; I may have known my father as well as anyone, but I’ll never completely understand him; I’ll absolutely never understand Michael and hope his soul finds beauty and joy in whatever comes next; if there was a way to wreak vengeance on pancreatic cancer, I would; and I’m grateful for and love my dad; and my Bubbee; and I think Gingos might know his world is limited by the sea, but Ketchup really doesn’t think further than a block in any direction.
But what do I know?
