When someone close to the family dies, a lot of dust is stirred up.

My godfather died last week, and I was informed that his burial will be tomorrow – more by accident than by plan. We hadn’t talked in 5 years, and in late 2018 I became curious what he and his wife were up to. Why not visit them for a change, since they don’t come visit anymore? I was at their place a couple times, but most of the time, like once every month plus for birthdays or so, my godfather and his wife visited us at home, back when I lived with my father.

The TL;DR of this story, the main takeaway for me, is this: don’t wait.

It’s not a new thought, and the outcome is not surprising, either. I planned the trip, but deferred taking action. I never visited them, even though I could’ve managed a round-trip plus a couple of hours of chat in a single afternoon. I didn’t take the time, because why hurry? Have lots to do anyways. Later this year, things will probably settle down. Then I’ll go.

That’s the stories I’ve told myself that made me not go. And now, well, my godfather has died from some disease that affected his brain and changed him over the past couple of years, I was told. I wouldn’t know, because I didn’t show up. This could also explain why they didn’t show up anymore, either. So in the end, I wouldn’t have visited the person I was remembering, one could say. Still, I’m mad at myself for not even calling. Even if we weren’t that close after all, I think I didn’t do my part. Nobody is accusing me of anything, but I do hold myself accountable for the past years of silence between us, too. Now I regret not getting in contact and will see my godfather’s wife on his burial for the first time in years. It’s hard to come up with anything to say, because even “I’m sorry for your loss” sounds fake in my ears, because if I really feel sorry, if I really do care, why didn’t I even call, huh?

The real TL;DR maybe really is: people die all the time, so make sure you do you while they’re still there.

Or it is: “you do you” for me boils down to not going all the way, not doing the hard things, by default. And that I should consider changing my ways, from half-assed good intentions to full-assed good actions, so to speak.