Personal Narrative: The Fuck Is Your Life

The death of a loved one will always hold sway. Not because Death is some big bad, but because the possibilities that person held are now lost. The future one imagined with their loved one will never exist. Sometimes I think that it is this we grieve the most. Cheryl Strayed swallowed one of her mother’s charred bones whole, as though that might somehow bring her closer to her lost mother. I cried the day of my high school graduation, because at the same time, in another state, my stepfather’s ashes were being scattered across the ancient oaks he loved so much.

I do not know if my stepfather feared his death. When told he only had five months left to live, he became reckless. He lived the last three years of his life “to the fullest.” He pushed away his loved ones, drank, and drugged the rest of his life away. He made my mom promise to name her unborn daughter Silvana, and then died the day after his 34th birthday. The irony is, he would have lived longer if he had not known he was going to die. While he was thinking “I’m dying anyways, fuck it,” to me it seemed that he allowed a fear of death to drive the last of his life. To live life without a fear or desire for death is not to say “fuck it.” To quote Strayed again: “The fuck is your life. Answer it.” She means that one cannot simply go through life as though it does not
We already answered why death should mean nothing to us. But, why life? I am sure it has been said before, but life can be a real bitch. It is hard work to navigate life, and people do not always make it. I could list out the moments of ecstasy, but it is not those fleeting moments that help me feel better when I am at my worst. It is in search of those moments that my Stepfather slowly poisoned himself. Cyrenaic hedonism is not the solution to despair. Stoicism has, on occasion, helped me not give into despair, but it is only a way to push it to the edges. These philosophies are missing something vital, which is