Those were the heart wrenching last words a friend dying of brain cancer said to me.
It wasn’t our whole conversation, but those words exactly — words of complete acceptance and resignation — are the ones that stuck with me.
He was a bartender and was telling me about his mixology techniques while he fixed me a drink. I wish I could remember what was in that drink, but I was too focused on fighting back tears. The thing is I honestly didn’t know how to go about it; how to comfort a person who was literally due to pass away within the next few days. So I just went with the flow and tried to listen to anything he said as carefully as possible.
Inevitably, the subject (his illness) came up. All I know is he cared deeply about how his mother was dealing with and felt about his state. She was his major concern. He really didn’t want her to suffer once he was gone. That killed me inside.
“I try to tell her,” he said. “It is what it is.”
I got chills.
He had to accept at such young age (mid-twenties) the fact that he couldn’t change his circumstances. Death was essentially waiting for him across the room and he wasn’t at all terrified. Or at least he put on a hell of a brave face for his mother’s sake. I was in awe.
He left this world a few weeks after that conversation we had in his mom’s kitchen — the day that I and several other people went to their house to basically say our goodbyes while he was still alive.
All my life, I’ve avoided going to wakes and funerals. I’m not mean — just weak! But to his… I had to, I wanted to go to.
I was touched by his words, by his courage. He didn’t fight the fact that some things, we really cannot change. He was another example of life being too, too short and that we must truly live it our way while we can.
Every time I see or hear that expression — “it is what it is” — I remember him. And it reminds me that, if nothing else, when all is said and done, a positive outlook can help us cope through the toughest of all challenges: death. Acceptance may not be easy, but it’s necessary.
Rest In Peace, my friend.
