Your dash

Yesterday I was watching the news and saw that B-list celebrity and Playboy playmate Yvette Vickers was found dead in her home in LA. Nothing struck me as notable about this story. Another celebrity death, again someone I had never heard of... so I prepared to change the channel to Seinfeld. But just as I was about to push the button I heard the reporter say, "Vickers was believed to have been dead for close to a year when her neighbor discovered her."

A year.

This poor soul was dead for ~365 days until someone finally noticed she no longer existed. My subsequent progression of emotions were: stunned, empathetic, introspective, paranoid, resolved.

I initially thought, "How can someone live a life wherein they have so little human interaction no one would miss their presence FOR A WHOLE YEAR?" A day, understandable. A week? Maybe. Two weeks? You're pushing it. A month? No way. Once my mind had resolved the straight logistics, my heart got involved. This Ms. Vickers led a solitary life, devoid of family, friends, even amicable neighbors- the kind who might leave fudge on your porch around the holidays or yell "Hi!" as they get in their car and see you trimming your begonias. Humans are inherently social beings (even the bat-shit craziest of us), and for this woman to be able to go a year without being missed speaks volumes about the intense reclusiveness she must have experienced. I felt in my heart a pang of grief for not only her, but for the what I'm sure are many solitary souls nudged aside by themselves or society. Sure, we all feel a little like Lucy Ricardo in the "Friends of the Friendless" episode once in a while, but (I hope) none of us can come close to relating to this extreme.

Then the focus turned to me. How long would I have to be dead before anyone noticed I was gone? I hope I have lived my life in such a way that I have enough human connection/interaction that people would not only notice I was gone (and rather promptly, at that), but they would also care. An excerpt from Linda Ellis's "The Dash" reads:

For that dash represents all the time
That she spent alive on earth
And now only those who loved her
Know what that little line is worth.


Of what has my dash been thus far comprised? Sure, I'm still relatively young, but I'm also a realist in knowing I could die at anytime. Maybe we should all be in constant evaluation and re-evaluation of what that dash would represent to those who knew us. Many would measure that dash based on accomplishments and milestones, but it's about more than that. What have you meant to the lives of others? If you know me, you know how much value I place on relationships. It is my personal credo that life is wholly, completely, unequivocally, 100% about the relationships you build and keep- be they with God, your family, your friends, your belongings, or yourself.  I can only hope I've meant something (however big or little) to the lives of everyone I've had the pleasure to have known. Of course during this introspection a bit of paranoia crept in, as I tried to piece together the entirety of the relationships of my past, but that didn't last long. One of the many things I'll credit to my soccer career in terms of life lessons is the stark realization that while the past cannot be changed, the future is entirely up to you.


And that's what led me to my final emotion: resolution. Sometimes it takes the pitiable death of an ex-Playmate to serve as a reminder that we control what that dash will represent to those we will leave behind. It's not that I want everyone I've ever known to experience an intense sadness when I die, but it is my great hope that I will leave behind enough of a profound legacy that in my absence, those I knew will be touched. I've lost (to Heaven's gain) people in my life whose deaths certainly had that effect on me, and because of that they will never be forgotten. 


I believe that dash is a worthy one when everyone in the room at your funeral would know the last thing you would want is for them to feel grief, yet simultaneously would internalize the sentiments of W.H. Auden:



(S)he was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.

The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.




If you died tomorrow, what would your dash mean?