Media That Moved Me: Death Changed My Life
Welcome to the first installment of Media that Moved Me. In this series, I’ll review articles, videos, movies, and other media that spoke to me–I’ll share personal anecdotes as well. It’s essentially a more serious version of the rather lighthearted “Tidbits” series.
“Death Changed My Life” is an op-ed by Charles M. Blow in the New York Times. It’s from January, but I’m still thinking about the themes that he explored and the incredible bravery he showed in sharing his story with the world. Here’s the excerpt that replays in my mind:
“Around the time my brother died, my life was a mess. Publicly, I was a columnist at The New York Times, a CNN contributor about to start his own show on the Black News Channel, and an author on the brink of publishing his second book. My first, a memoir, had been adapted into an opera that would soon premiere at the Met. I worked out, and I ate well. “Health is Wealth” was my motto.
But privately, I wasn’t healthy. I was lonely and alone. I drank too much. I lived my life like it was about to end. I was afraid to be alone with my pain, because in the quiet, it got loud.”
In the weeks before and after the two-year anniversary of my aunt’s passing on February 13th, Blow’s words really struck a chord with me. Now I look back on that day as the day that changed my life forever. The day when a freak accident halfway across the world shattered my family’s hearts. The day when I realized that anything can happen, to anyone.
Since then, I’ve come to see my place in the world and what I mean to people in a new way. One person’s presence can have a truly profound impact on not just their immediate family and close friends, but even people they’d only see a few times a year. I only really, truly began to understand this because of the pain that sometimes resurfaces when I think about the pie recipes my aunt hadn’t gotten a chance to teach me or the ski trip that I’d been meaning to go on with her. We kept putting it off, because we didn’t know how little time we had left.
The journey never ends with one day. Or a month. Or a year. Or two years. Lately I’ve been struggling with grief, but it has manifested in a different way than it ever has before. As my high school career comes to a close, I’ve been reminiscing on the past and thinking about what I’ll do once I get to college. As for the present, I feel like I’m waiting as life passes me by.
And while I wait, I have no choice but to “be alone with my pain.”
At first, I wasn’t that afraid of my pain. I felt like grieving was acceptable back then–I’d just experienced a traumatic life event, and the people I trusted knew about it. Many of them were going through it too. And then COVID hit, and everyone was grieving something–the loss of their normal way of life, or of a loved one.
Two years later, it feels like the world’s moved on and I’m the only one whose pain decided to re-emerge a couple weeks ago. I’m writing this post from my bedroom, my quiet room where the pain gets loudest. I’ve had days where I lived like my life, or the life of someone I loved, was about to end, and I hated every minute of them. Living life in fear sucked all the joy out of everything I did–playing tennis, having lunch with grandparents I hadn’t seen in weeks, talking to my friends late at night when we couldn’t sleep. I couldn’t stop asking myself what would happen if it all disappeared.
But perhaps the most important takeaway from Blow’s opinion piece is that sharing that pain can help you feel less alone. And that you have the power to turn your life around. Sure, you won’t be the same person. But you’ll commit yourself to making a positive difference in other people’s lives, and enjoy every moment that you do have. So a sincere thank you to this wonderful piece for voicing the emotions that I’ve struggled to make sense of. Death is a signal of change, and we can shape that change. I’m working on it.
Read “Death Changed My Life” in full: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/23/opinion/life-changes-death.html