I am not the captain
A journal from December 17th, 2024
My uncle died yesterday.
I believe he’s now watching over us, reunited with friends and family and other loved ones; my imagination contemplates his surprise at my father’s presence . . . “John? What are you doin up here?”
Because he had a stroke in March, Uncle Peter was not aware my dad passed.
Another series of coincidences surround what is outwardly a tragic loss . . . although, now that I think about it, the word tragic makes an assumption.
I’ve been forced to wonder, considering these various synchronicities throughout what have been some incredibly painful months for my family, are things really meant to be? If they are, if there’s really something behind all this, how and why would it grant passage to such calamities?
It’s an inexperienced question, really, redolent of innocent fortune. I believe in God, but that doesn’t mean I always understand what he does.
How could this all happen in so short a time? Why would it happen in so short a time? Was it just to rip the bandaid off? Have I witnessed mercy? What kind of governing force rapidly alters the worldview of so many with the most minuscule of malfunctions?
I know life gets much worse. Much more forceful. Much more tragic. But what about the blink of an eye? A subtle glitch, a lapse in routine, the slightest of disruptions?
What makes tragedy tragic? Can it be tragic if it’s inevitable? It still took us by surprise! Is this game simply far more delicate than we first imagined? Is this just how it goes sometimes? Bad luck? Wrong place, wrong time? Unfortunate but completely unintentional and unrelated series of events? Was it a clogged artery? One too many cheeseburgers? At what point was this etched in stone? What atomic movement marked imminence?
Were all these happenings mere coincidences? There’s no way!
Why is it so hard to accept, when rubber meets road, our finitude? The finitude of those we love? We knew it all along! We knew the game we were playing! Why do we seek greater, deeper reasons when it’s us to whom these wretched rules apply?
While I’m not, I hope, so self-centered as to think this all happened because of me, it seems, in its incomprehensible intricacy, that the game of life decided last year for one reason or another to shake me like a ragdoll until I let go . . . until I relinquished that misinformed perception. I am not the captain.
Death is a matter of life. Though beautiful and wondrous, birth impels suffering. We don’t choose to play the game, and we don’t choose its bounds, but we do have many choices to make while playing.
We can choose, for example, to accept or fight fruitlessly against the flow—that which we cannot control . . . And we can choose what to look at, what to pay mind to, what to make, on the inside, of certain things.
What is there to make of these coincidences? Is there anything to be made of them? Why is it my friend—who never comes downtown during the day—arrived right there where I was as my brother spoke those words? I mean, it was at that exact moment! It could not have been more perfectly timed!
Why is it my mother flew to Florida on the exact same day my uncle, who was in Florida with my aunt for a vacation—the reason for them both being there at the same time entirely unrelated—had a stroke? What otherworldy force made it so that she could drive right to the hospital from the airport to be with my aunt? Who sent these guardians?
And this is just the tip of the iceberg! What about the ladybug with which my eyes met right there on the sidewalk as the word “coincidence” left my mouth? Have I ever seen a ladybug crawling on the sidewalk? Forgive me, reader, for I am omitting some context here.
What about the hummingbird? The life insurance? The reconciliation? All these things I cannot at the moment take the time to explain? What about them? There are too many to ignore! It seems, anyway, that they don’t want to be ignored . . . That they want me to know something . . . That it wasn’t I who sought those greater, deeper reasons, but them who sought me!
Surely, you know what I mean. I mean, not specifically, but, you know, the idea of it all. Surely, you’ve experienced these inexplicables before as well. These things that are entirely real, yet unbelievable.
No! It’s not a movie! It’s not fiction. And yet, we wallow as if we’re sitting on the sidelines.
Ask anyone. Perhaps some might not have a story. But I’d be surprised. Most have something.
For some reason, though, we all go back to life as if nothing ever happened . . . As if we didn’t just see a ghost. As if the person we just thought of didn’t text us right then and there. As if the most magical series of events didn’t just transpire. As if we’re not a part of the most unlikely, wild thing in expanses of light years. As if it’s not all going to be okay!
Life really does eat ass. It sucks. It’s the worst. Truly a series of unfortunate events.
But if you stick around, if you just keep swimming, if you slow down, if you pay attention, if you care for your health, if you invest in your loved ones, if you chase your dreams—yes, go ahead and chase, crazy child—you might just glimpse beauty.
The sort of beauty you always dreamt of. The stuff of cinema. But better. Things movie makers could hardly ever conjure.
One day, the stars will align, and everything will make sense. It can’t make sense all the time, you see. I don’t know why—perhaps it’s a test of faith, or maybe it’s part of the alchemy . . . because you appreciate something more when you experience its absence. But one day, believe me, it’ll all come together in this beautiful portrait.
What sets it off? Beats me. I’m sure my limited cognitive and perceptive abilities prevent me from understanding. We may not even, in fact, have the word that sheds light on this I speak of.
But I sense there is a reason for this. The beauty cannot be named, for it cannot be contained. It is infinite; into no box can it fit, as it and the box would instantly become one.
You can call God God, but that’s not what makes Him Him. “I AM WHO I AM.”
It’s true: one day, the stars will align, and you’ll see it, if you decided to stick around, and then the world will keep spinning, and everything’ll fade back into that mushy slop of chaos, and you’ll start back on your journey to a peak from which you may witness the next intergalactic coincidence.
If you’d like access to the paid version of Ryan’s Substack for free, you can refer other readers.
Real.
At one point of time life throws everything at you but what matters is being optimistic and rise in the war.Grab the opportunity coz the best comes in the worst.
Good job mate,I absolutely love it.