When I was in high school, I got from somewhere a poster reproduction of Albrecht Durer's engraving, St. Jerome in His Study. Even now, I'm not sure why I liked it so well, but nevertheless I kept it directly above my desk. (You can see the whole thing, in Wikipedia's Commons .) The engraving contains numerous conventional symbols, a few of which I recognized even then. But, I didn't recognize the 'momento mori' -- a skull sitting on the shelf under the window.
And at 18, who does?
Like most 18 year olds, I assumed that nothing would happen to me. At 18, there's time for everything, and it's still possible to assume you'll get it all done. I'd read St. Mathew's record of Christ's warning, that we should not "be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body". But, I was 18, and all that seemed remote.
In retrospect, I realize it was never as remote as it seemed. I was near death far more times in my late teens and early twenties than I've been in all the years since. There were at least half a dozen occasions, when I was a hair's breadth away from a fatal accident, but I didn't slip; the surface of the water was close enough, barely; the idiotic leap succeeded. And, that's not including general recklessness, like driving too fast.
I yet live, in spite of all those things.
I think many young people -- at least those with some sort of intact family -- tend to unconsciously assume the presence of a family 'home', some place they could go back to, if it came to that. It's not necessarily anything very substantial, but it's there, even though you may notice it most when you are losing it.
But, it's that sense that gives us a "here" when we say we live "here" or are from "here". It is these things that root us in 'this' life, "here", and give the young a place 'be' in their presumed immortality.
For me, that place was most particularly 16 Castle Avenue, my mother's parent's home. Soon after I moved out of 16 Castle, in order to marry Susan, the decision was soon that it wasn't practical for Grandmother to continue to live there alone. So, Aunt Austin took her in, and 16 Castle Avenue was sold.
That was something I found hard. Ever since then, at least for me, just being near 16 Castle is enough to trigger a sense of loss. 16 Castle was the nexus of the Averett clan, almost as much as Grandmother herself. And without it, there was no longer a 'home' for the Averetts, at least not in the way there had been.
In a general sort of way, age tends to expose those illusions. However, I think that it is funerals that expose those illusions in the most pointed and individual way possible. When my grandfather died in 1979, my world was emptied of heroes. When my mother died last year, fractures in my own immediate family became permanent. And, with the death of Susan's father a year ago this spring, the 'umbrella' of parents and grandparents behind us vanished.
The writer of Hebrews tells us that Abraham "lived as an alien in the land of promise, as in a foreign land, dwelling in tents with Isaac and Jacob, fellow heirs of the same promise;for he was looking for the city which has foundations, whose architect and builder is God." We are all called to do the same.
But, I think it can be kind of hard to do so, when you are young, and your life is still fully rooted in places and parents and grandparents. I wonder what sort of momento mori I ought to place on my son's desks?
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