Memento Mori
How the inevitability of death has taught me to love my life even on the hardest days
Don’t Wait
You will want to be taller, shorter, thinner,
curvier. You will disappoint your mother
& yourself. Your boss won’t care how you
performed on high school exams. You will
believe you lost the love of your life. Instead
you will meet them a year from now
on a Tuesday. Tulips will bloom the day
of your father’s funeral. It will storm
on your wedding day. Marriage will feel
both lonely & suffocating. You will adore
& resent your children. You will wish
for more time. You will promise to be better.
You will not be better. Winter will return
uninvited. You will be a sad cinnamon roll.
You will miss your green bones, regret
the unkindness you showed them. Your friends
will be your soulmates. You will bury your dog
& your sister. Your skin will wrinkle gorgeous
like hydrangea petals. Your war-ravaged heart
will keep beating. Before the end you will realize
all of it mattered. Don’t wait until then to fall
in love with your life. As long as I can remember, I’ve loved walking in cemeteries. Not at night, as I’m easily spooked and prone to nightmares, but by day when I can read the inscriptions on the tombstones and imagine the lives of those who left this Earth before me. During the pandemic as my son’s father and I grappled with a newborn, lockdown, and the recognition that we were not compatible longterm, I often found myself seeking solace alone or with my baby strapped to my chest in a cemetery nearby.
Perhaps it sounds morbid to seek out the dead when you’re questioning your own life decisions and have a history of suicidal ideation, but walking among those whose time with the living has ended reminds me of every reason I want to stay tethered to this life. On days my brain is cruelest, a walk among tombstones, wildflowers, and captions written by those grieving loss of their beloved, I remember how temporary and fragile our time with one another is.
I wrote this poem as a reminder to myself. Some days, life feels difficult to love. I spent many years believing I needed to become a specific version of myself before my life would be of value, but my forty years have looked nothing as I imagined. I’ve tried many times to mold myself into the kind of woman I thought I should be, to be less messy and conventional, but the truth is my life has been interesting.
I’m not grateful for all of it. I wish certain traumatic experiences in childhood and in relationships had never taken place. I wish I could prevent the self-sabotage of my youth—take back the pain I caused through words and actions to people I loved. Those of you who have read my work long enough know I detest a forced silver lining. I do not believe everyone is required to spin joy out of pain. However, even in the moments living felt most unbearable, there were pinpricks of joy.
At my father’s funeral, I held his newborn grand-niece, and she couldn’t stop smiling. During my divorce, my friends fed me pasta carbonara and warm blueberry muffins to ensure I ate. When I was separated from my seventeen-month old son for fifty percent of the time, my girlfriends came over to help organize my new house to make it feel like home. During all of these moments, even when I wished my circumstances were different, looking back, I realize how love and joy persisted even in the dark.
Recently, while leading a hiking and writing retreat in the Scottish Highlands, I visited Greyfriars Kirkyard in Edinburgh. I kept seeing tombstones with “Memento Mori” inscribed over a skull and crossbones. For those unfamiliar, “Memento Mori” is Latin for “Remember [that you have to] die,” which sounds grim but historically has served as a reminder to the living of the impermanence of life, a reminder during our brief time on Earth to live in accordance with our values.
And I want to remember to savor this life. To stay present even when my child is melting down in a restaurant, when my partner and I are out of sync, when I’m overwhelmed by chores and bills because one day I will miss these things. My son won’t need me as he does now, my love and I will be parted when we take our final breaths, and I’ll miss the dishes and dog hair left by the creatures I love most.
Life is beautiful and messy and chaotic and heartbreakingly unfair. I don’t want to wait until the end to delight in all of it.
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I love this poem- it has me reliving our walk through Greyfriars that first morning in Edinburgh. I went back on my last day in Edinburgh after our retreat and sat and soaked in the energy there. It was magical, sitting alone with the ravens and crows (still have trouble telling them apart!), the light misty rain, the patina on all the stones and markers- it helped me to remember that there is magic in every moment if we are open to it.
Oh this is so heartbreakingly ( and by that I mean heart-opening) marvelous. A deep dive into the fathomless complexities of being a human. A study in how to fully occupy a life.