I See You've Called in Dead

by John Kenney

“But how can he call you if he’s dead?”

I subscribe to a channel on YouTube called Relaxing Mowing.

To come to the realization that you didn’t, that your chances were running out, that time—something that once seemed to move so slowly—had sped up when you weren’t looking. That it was late in the game and you were losing big.

It’s just that … time has a way … of … weighing on you.

‘We do not know where death awaits us: so let us wait for it everywhere. To practice death is to practice freedom.’”

You can’t kiss a stranger but you can want to.

I knew my father for my entire life but I can’t say I knew him well.

The feelings his annoyance elicited in me. I was suddenly twelve years old. How is it we never escape family?

It’s a strange thing to have your life upended, to go to lawyers and pay a lot of money and not speak to this person you were once married to. To part with half of your life savings. To become bitter and angry and no longer trusting of people.

What is it we remember of a life?

I thought I was doing okay. Things felt pretty good. Job, wife, future. And then it was like someone changed the script on me.

Do it now. Whatever it is. Do that thing that honors life.”

‘There are three secrets to a happy life. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.’

We walk around with these deep wounds that alter how we think and what we say, the relationships we have, who we trust, the decisions we make. That keep us from really living.”

The greatest wonder is that every day, all around us, people die, but we act as if it couldn’t happen to us.