The first call came just as I was about to walk out the door. A friend had passed away in a surfing accident. The second call came from my wife. Our cousin in law had passed away in a car accident. The third was a message letting me know that someone who I was getting to know had collapsed suddenly after a medical appointment and hadn’t made it. Three lives lost in the space of three weeks.
Their ages ranged from 42 – 51 years old. Every one of them left behind a wife and children, some of the kids just a few years old.
Each loss sucked the air out of me and for a moment stopped me dead in my tracks. Then a deep breath to refill the lungs and onward. How shockingly short that moment was. I needed to continue with the day, answer that email, go to that meeting, write that proposal, take the kids to school.
In the moment of hearing of a life lost, an immediate revelation of the fragility of one’s own existence takes place. This is not optional; it is entirely human. Yet what also seems entirely human – at least to me – is that the space we give this seismic moment is disproportionately brief and superficial. I found myself saying ‘I must process this’ but the time never felt right or there was just no time at all. Perhaps I simply didn’t have the tools necessary to do this work. I was letting loss pass me by.
Yet ironically, loss passing me by has highlighted other aspects of life passing me by. It feels as though I have lost a sense of the sacred, my senses dulled, reflecting the color of the treadmill I run on every day: Time with my children, hikes in the mountains, solitude and contemplation, reflection and journalling, quality time with my wife, fun, play and adventure. As I have got swept along by the serious business of life, these life-elements have drifted into the ‘I must’ category.
When speaking with colleagues, clients and friends I hear the same sentiments spoken with genuine concern. Time is flying by. I hear of an urgent, cellular level need to slow down and engage with what is meaningful and real. But the gap between that exhausted desire and reality is painfully irreconcilable. So much so that we ‘close it’ by numbing those difficult emotions with all our hacks; TV series, social media, substances and a multitude of other distractions offered by the modern world that function to keep us from what really matters.
Thankfully the men who passed left a legacy. They made an impact through how they lived. Their memorials reflected this with large churches filled to the brim and story after story shared through tears and laughter. As each story unfolded, I asked myself how I could somehow pull aspects of their story into my own. How could I pick up the baton and run with an attribute that I admired, admire about each of them. Stories about their approach to parenting, about the way they did business, stories of generosity, stories of sacrifice and ultimately, stories of love.
Loss, for those of us who remain, should not just be a fleeting moment, but rather a shift in trajectory. The significance of loss is that it will, if we allow it, weave itself into the deeper part of our lives, fueling purpose, restoring vision and reconnecting us with our values. If every loss I encounter in some way shifts my trajectory in a slightly better direction, not only will I honor those who have moved on, but I too will leave a legacy.
James Clear in his book, atomic habits, uses an analogy of a cross-continental flight to explain how tiny, 1% incremental shifts in our daily routine compound over time into drastically different destinations. A minor 3.5-degree change in the direction of a plane is an imperceptible change. But over a long distance will compound into an entirely new destination. As the weeks have rolled on, I have become increasingly inspired by the lives of those we lost, and I have begun asking myself: what tiny shift can I make to honor their memory?
For the first, I committed to tennis games with my kid once a week. I simply need to pull the face of the man who did so many activities with his children as motivation to stick to this shift.
For the second, I committed to supporting others in their endeavors, fueled by the hundreds of people who showed appreciation for the small ways this man showed up for them.
For the third, I committed to be more playful and have more fun, spurred on by the many lighthearted stories of a successful man who did not take himself too seriously.
Loss is complex and painful. But it loses part of its sting when you keep a person’s memory alive, tapping into their legacy and walking a sacred path toward leaving your own.
Travis Gale is the Founder and Managing Director of Appletree Group, a company dedicated to helping organisations shape and sustain strong, healthy cultures.
Image: Inna Safa
