6, 30, 50: Patterns of Life

Humans love patterns. We see them everywhere: simple and elegant, complex and beautiful, rich in meaning, mysterious and altogether confounding. Mathematics, the Queen of the Sciences, is essentially the study of patterns. The device you hold, the glowing screen, the letters and symbols you are reading… all of them are patterns that your amazing brain has translated into language and culture and technology. Is it a Tuesday or a Wednesday? Is it 3pm or Midnight? Of what month, of what year? And what of music, art, light, quantum particles, clouds and cookies and caresses? These patterns of time and texture saturate our experience of this life. We breathe and swim and think in them. It is what we do.

Some of us see 11:11 on a digital clock and imagine something magical is happening. Others see the planets in alignment, the stars guiding their way, the appearance of a bird or other creature as their “spirit animal” communicating comfort, hope, or purpose.

Although I have never been into numerology or animism or astrology at any level, I do share a wonder at the mystery and beauty of patterns which can give our lives a sense of comfort, hope, and security. Whether looking up to the heavens or into the microscopic world or at the ubiquitous fractal patterns of everyday life, there is much to quietly observe and ponder and praise.

A few significant numbers have stood out as of late for me: 6, 30, 50

6: It has been six months since our beloved son, Isaac, left this earth. Half a year ago my entire world turned upside down, and my path was forever changed in an instant. The earth was exactly on the other side of its present orbit around the sun. The leaves were beginning to fall into the autumn months, just as now they are beginning to bud.

Six months holds no significant “spiritual” meaning to me, and yet these have been the most significant six months of my life. What do I do with this knowledge, with this time passed, with the flowers blooming, with my tears streaming, my pain and anguish and quiet and solitary hikes and empty car seat and shared music and memories and smiles and warmth of gratitude for 21 amazing years with my son? What do I do with my loving friends who stand by me and hold me through the depths of loss, with my wife bereaved of her youngest son, our oldest son finding his own way through this season of pain and confusion?

Six months is a long time, and yet it is only a moment. It is a blip in the history of the earth. The trees will grow and fall and grow again over this land. The mountains will rise and erode and rise again. Who has walked these lands before us, and who will come after? Six months, six years, six millennia will come and go… and yet, here we are marveling over the mystery of time and our place in it, the path we have journeyed and have yet to walk.

I recently visited ancient ceremonial and burial mounds along the Natchez Trace, some possibly a thousand years old. Who lived there? What families laughed together, sang songs, ate feasts, worshiped, lived and died and wept together? I also visited a more recent set of mounds from a small Southern town that disappeared just 100 years ago due to a dried up spring and series of unfortunate events. All that was left was a church, a graveyard, old cisterns, and a couple of rusted-out safes in the woods marking the place of a post office and a bank. Gone, nearly absorbed by the forest. I thought about my son, my family, my own life and time and the future leftovers of our grand civilizations. Strangely, it gave me a sense of peace and gratitude for the moments we have now and the organic cycle of life. It is all wondrous to me.

Life will not “go back to normal” for me, not after six months — not ever. For what is considered “normal”, anyway? It’s just a pattern, a story perhaps we have told ourselves to help bring guidance and meaning to life. No, I cannot return to business as usual. My son, Isaac, gave me 21 years of his beautiful life, and I will fully “lean into” this process of grieving, of personal transformation as I integrate the essence of my son (his poetry and personality, wonder and adventure, compassion and strength and character) into my own life. I don’t know what that will look like in the days and years to come, but it’s all I can do. And it feels right. It feels good.

30: Thirty years ago in early March 1993, I boarded a plane from Los Angeles to St. Louis to bury my father. He was a young man, only 42. I remember it well. When I heard the news of his passing, my first thought was that he would never meet my future wife or his future grandchildren. And they would never have a chance to meet this amazing and sweet man, a calm and easy-going friend who put you at ease with a smile, with a song on his guitar, with a canoe trip down a spring-fed river. He was genuine and caring and fun to be around, always up for a day of climbing trees, cliff jumping, or going on a camping adventure. We had shared memories from San Diego to Oregon to Yellowstone to St. Louis to the Grand Canyon and back again. He taught me how to adventure and take risk and enjoy the beauty of this magnificent place.

And there I was on a cold day in March, standing at a hole in the ground where my father was laid to rest… a man I mostly knew through mix-tape cassette correspondence, weekly phone calls, annual camping trips, and warm hugs. We loved each other well during the short time we had. I didn’t know how to respond as a 19-year-old college student from the West Coast. My aunt and uncle and mother just stood next to me. We cried. We hugged. It began to snow gently and quietly and beautifully.

So much has happened since that day thirty years ago, so much I would have loved for my father to see and be part of and experience. But such is life. We have a few short years on this planet with each other, and then our time here is over. How will we live? Who will we meet? What will be do? Who will we become?

I pause and think about the similarities between this grandfather (my dad) and grandson (Isaac) who never met in this life. Both were athletic, with that lean rock-climber sinewy muscular build. Both were artistic and poetic in nature. Both were very calming, authentic, friendly and genuine listeners. They put you at ease and made you feel comforted when you were around them. Both were always up for an impulsive adventure, literally jumping off of cliffs into quarries, cowboy camping and cave exploring. And their smiles would melt your heart. Although they never met in person, I’d like to think that they’re “up there somewhere” climbing heavenly trees and laughing together. My dad was 42 when he passed away. Isaac was 21. Numbers, patterns, wonder and peaceful reflection. That is all.

50: Yes, a few days ago I turned fifty years old. Is that significant? Does it mean anything? I’m not sure there is anything spiritually associated with turning fifty, but it does mean I’m getting older. Time to schedule a colonoscopy, keep my reading glasses within arms’ reach, and finally stop eating that Costco pizza. But what else does turning fifty mean?

After this much time and all “the stuff of life” that a half-century entails, I am finding that my priorities are changing. I’ve always valued relationships above things, shared experiences over prestige and position, generosity over prudence, compassion over tribalism. And while I fully believe it is possible to walk the path of “doing well and doing good” at the same time, I find myself laughing more absurdly than ever at the strange human experience of American suburbia and culture. As Whitman wrote:

Of the endless trains of the faithless, of cities fill’d with the foolish,

Of myself forever reproaching myself, (for who more foolish than I, and who more faithless?)

Of eyes that vainly crave the light, of the objects mean, of the struggle ever renew’d,

Of the poor results of all, of the plodding and sordid crowds I see around me,

Of the empty and useless years of the rest, with the rest me intertwined…

(from O Me! Oh Life! by Walt Whitman)

I am not exempt from any of it, but rather in passive participation with this strange world in which I find myself.

But I am here. I exist. I am fifty years old, and I can and will change my life, by the grace of God. I am fifty, and I hope to reach sixty, seventy, ninety years old. I want to continue paragliding, exploring, adventuring, giving, loving, playing baseball in my “old man league” for many, many years to come. And through it all, I want to immerse myself in the greatest adventure of all: loving my family and friends well, making new friends along the way, and hopefully sharing some of the love that has been given to me on this long, strange trip.

I don’t know what 50, 30, 6 or any other number really has to do with any of it, to be honest. These numbers, these patterns, these milestones and moments to reflect along the way are what make up much of life. I do not discount or dismiss them as imagined phenomena. I choose to imbue them with meaning, and that’s okay. I see my son in the flowers. I see my father in the flickering campfire light. My (very living) mother is in the empty baseball stands cheering her 50-year-old son as he rounds the bases, just as she did over forty years ago. (She still requires a post-game interview after every game, by the way).

“Fascinated by it all,” sings Jack Johnson in one of my favorite songs. And that is how I see these patterns in which we find ourselves. I don’t understand it, and that is all right. Perhaps we aren’t always supposed to understand this curious life. Rather, we can lean into the fascination of life, the patterns, the beauty, the wonder. And maybe along the way, we can find a little love and forgiveness and grace to give and receive. That would be quite a pattern. That would be a tapestry.