Doesn’t it seem like death would be like leaving for a vacation? Or is it just like that when I do it?

I’ve known about this trip for half a year. I’ve been planning for it for months. I’ve been setting aside time from my job and taking care of all the necessary payments, details, paperwork for weeks and weeks. And yet, when I came down to the last day … well, that’s where the death thing came in.

There had been so much time. Even when it was finally three days before, then two, then one, I would have periods of time (though they got shorter and shorter) when I would think I was fine for time. More than fine, that I had too much time. And then things would re-align a little or I would think of one more thing I hadn’t attended to, and suddenly time would be the one thing I had nowhere near enough of. And since that came in fits and starts, there are some tiny details that got my full attention and got done to a fare-thee-well, and other important things that got done too fast or left undone.

The pace sped up and up and up, with mistakes or without them, with guilt or without it, with panic or without it.

And then you get to that moment when you actually leave the house. You put all the baggage in the car, you take your last look, and you go. Knowing that things were left undone, with some confidence that you took care of most of the important stuff. But in any case, it’s just plain past the time when you can take care of anything else. There’s nothing for it. You leave.

Driving to the airport for a big trip is one of the quietest times I know. You see all the things around, but you’re already not part of it. Other people are going to work, kids are going to school, and you don’t have anything to do with that anymore. You start to look at the city you live in as a stranger would. There’s increasing busy-ness, anxiety, stress on one side of a vacation and (hopefully) there’s happiness and refreshment for your soul when you get to it. But in the middle is just quiet. You’re between worlds and aren’t quite accountable to either one. (Which is the kind of impression that lets me belt out “Delilah” with my Tom Jones CD. The weekday Grace could never do that.)

Anyway, as I say … maybe that’s just me.