“Life is an opportunity, benefit from it.
Life is beauty, admire it.
Life is a dream, realize it.
Life is a challenge, meet it.
Life is a duty, complete it.
Life is a game, play it.
Life is a promise, fulfill it.
Life is sorrow, overcome it.
Life is a song, sing it.
Life is a struggle, accept it.
Life is a tragedy, confront it.
Life is an adventure, dare it.
Life is luck, make it.
Life is too precious, do not destroy it.
Life is life, fight for it.”
-Mother Teresa
I was perusing Google results for quotes about life when I came across this amazing quote by Mother Teresa. Some of you may be asking yourself why a young girl would be looking for such things; my simple response to that question is that I rarely go on Facebook, and when I do, I like to leave something that is profound and enlightening to that of my peers—that would leave them saying, “Wow… Kelsey is deep.” On my quest for enlightenment, I stumbled upon this quote, and I immediately thought of David: of how he did not see the beauty, the dream, the challenge, or the game of life, of how he chose to give up and not fight the ultimate fight. David was my older cousin; to say that I shared with him my life on a deep level of intimacy as that of my brother or sister or Timothy would be inaccurate to say the very least. But what I did have for him was an extreme level of admiration and respect. I was intimidated by the greatness of him, and I regret not setting that aside and not getting to know him on a deeper level. I love my cousin David… I love his smile and his intelligence, his kindness and sincerity, his sense of humor, and the way I felt when I was in his presence. What I do not love is how he could give up and take the coward’s way out and leave so many behind pining, grieving, and brokenhearted over his selfish decision. I can’t stand to see the pain his actions caused. While this is my sentiment at the moment, as I am sure is many of yours, I have been trying to understand, to comprehend the reasons behind his choice, to evaluate his suffering in comparison to all of ours now and reason if it was worth it. What I reasoned, however, was that I could never comprehend or feel the depth of David’s despair—it was his and his alone, and not I nor anyone could quantify or qualify that. At this moment, I feel unbelievably angry that he couldn’t resist, fight harder, and stay with us… and at the same time despairingly sad that he felt so much and saw no other way out, that he was in enough pain to even consider this, that nothing any of us could have done to prevent it, and how lonely this must have felt. I then began to write what my friend Vanessa deems “Flash Fiction”: a story from David’s perspective, a quick glance into the mind of what I deem a desperate man. The experience was a cathartic one, and I can only hope that reading it for some of us who are just as angry as I am will see that a second is all it takes and that eventually, in the future, we need to forgive David for making a decision that changed all of our lives forever. By seeing it through his eyes, perhaps the road to forgiveness will be lessoned, and we can all start to heal. I hope you enjoy.
A Second
By Kelsey E. Guggenheim
I sometimes sit and think about time. I can feel a minute pulsing in my veins; it rushes through my arteries feeding my drive, my will to survive. Have you ever just sat and tried to feel that; feel the time, feel how with every second, every heartbeat you lose your grasp on it? I’m sure you are looking at me like I am one of three things: crazy, high, or hopelessly pessimistic; but if you are looking at me like that, then you simply haven’t been in the position that I am in, right now this very minute. I’m not high, nor a pessimist, and I would like to think that I am not insane. What I am is on the brink of disaster, the precipice of a lifetime. My toes are straddling the edge of the cliff, and with one small choice, in one second, I could end it, end it all. Or I could look the cliff in the eye and say, “Fuck you,” and keep on moving, keep on living. Some like to believe that there is no such thing as time, that we simply exist in this great never-changing vacuum that we humans like to call “Earth.” I know it in my every fiber in my core that they are wrong. If there was no such thing as time, then how would age have marched across my face in my deep-furrowed brow, how would I have made it this far having seen all the things I have seen? Time heals all wounds, no? I should find solace in my survival: Two whole years without her, I made it, two whole years of memories, of holidays, of trips, of coffee, of “how are you doing”’s, two whole years to pontificate that she is no longer here, her presence dissolving with every minute in this fabricated concept, time. To say that this year was hell would be an understatement, to say that I feel better, stronger would be a lie. With each heartbeat, each moment of time passing through me I should want to cling on to the world and never let go, I should be fighting against Father Time for one more minute, one more second with the ones I love. Darwin said that survival of the fittest is innate in us, that no one wants to die, that is a sin against the very essence of nature, of life. If that was true, then why am I tying the noose? Every millisecond it gets tighter, clenching my throat, and I can feel myself losing seconds and minutes and hours of my so-called existence. Do I have the strength to take the plunge, to jump into the abyss and never look back, to leave my family in the wreckage of my fall? Is it really worth it, am I hurting that badly?
Yes, yes I am… in this second I cannot see a better outcome, and a second is all that it takes.
