George Bernard Shaw once said that “youth is wasted on the young.” It’s one of those phrases that we hear growing up that doesn’t make much sense. Whenever my friends and I would hear it, we’d mock it, saying “we can’t wait to grow up! Everything will be better the moment we turn 18!”

Do you remember the first time you truly understood what death was? The first time you realized that someone you loved would never come home?

When we were little kids, we assumed that everything was immortal. It’s only natural, since children have no frame of reference for anything that has ever happened. We didn’t know what happened the day before we were born, let alone that there is an end to every beginning, be it that tree in the yard, our favorite restaurant, or our childhood pet.

The first time I experienced death, I was about four years old. My grandparents owned a dog, Rascal. He was a rescue, who was named that because it was the closest word to what his previous abusive owner named him: Asshole. By the time I knew him, his joints were weak and his black snoot was covered in salt and pepper. He was my best friend.

One day, my mom drove me to my grandma and grampa’s house, but instead of dropping me off, she stayed. I was ecstatic because I got more time with her, but I was confused when we got to the garage where Rascal stayed. I remember being so confused why he hadn’t come to say hello yet. As my mom and grandma tried to explain that he had fallen asleep and never woke up, the only thing I could think was that I had a new game I wanted to play with him.

When you’re in your early twenties, you realize that the world isn’t going to stay the same. It’s only natural, because even though you’ve seen more, it still isn’t very much. 

A few weeks before I wrote this, the news of Ozzy Osborne’s death was plastered on every newspaper in the Western world. Months before that, Pope Francis. In my first year of college, during a class with people whose names I’ve forgotten, Queen Elizabeth. 

Good; bad; detestable; admirable. All dead, all the same. They all had embedded themselves in culture as someone who would be there. They morphed from the type of people you see on the news while you’re playing with toys after dinner into people with personalities.

The Queen and Pope were world leaders — icons of cultural empires. Their faces had been plastered everywhere. Ozzy Osborne: a cultural monolith who showed up everywhere in the media made by his once-teenage fans. Cultural osmosis, drip-feeding information about their lives and times; people who are, like us, growing and changing to this day.

Then they’re gone.

Suddenly, these people you could rely on to exist in your peripherals, are gone. You’d likely never met any of the three, but they were always there. They were reminders of a version of how the world used to be. 

When we reach middle age, we’ll realize that not all of our friends have made it this far. It’s only natural because we’ve been here longer. We’re halfway there.

When he was my age, my dad was a troublemaker. He was living in San Francisco trying to become a pro-skater, which failed after he broke his ankle. Every story he tells from that time, I think once more, “How are you alive?” 

Life hasn’t dealt him a good hand. His mom died when he was young, his dad just five years after I’d been born. At this point, I’m about the only blood family he has left, but he always tries his best. He may fail, and he may know it, but he always gives 110%. It’s one of his best qualities. Even in his friendships, he goes all-in.

2020 hit him hard. He lost multiple friends that year, people he had known since high school. People who he had supported and uplifted, who had returned the favor in tough times. People whose parents had invited him for dinner. People who had helped him through funerals, breakups, and upheaval. People like my friends, both far and near.

Whether we go first or they do, there will be a day when those memories become one-sided. A day when you can’t remember what someone said, and the person who took the voice note won’t be able to send it. A day when you can’t ask about niche trivia only they know. A day when you can’t sit in comfortable silence together.

These people aren’t just themselves; they’re a collection of everything they’ve ever done with everyone they’ve ever met. In a moment, those stories are gone forever, the echoes of a world from the past. They were collections of life as you know it. The new world is fully born.

When we grow old, we seem to realize that there’s not much left to do.

My grandpa goes on motorcycle rides every Monday. He usually takes the same routes, either out West or down South, passing through the same towns and restaurants. He has tried every greasy spoon and taco stand from Castle Rock to Cañon City, and from La Junta to Leadville. Every time he goes out, he drives for about eight hours. For years, I would wonder what he thinks about during those rides.

Recently I realized, I think I know now. 

My grampa is 75 years old and will be 76 when this comes out. When I see him, he usually mentions that the average age of men in 2023 is 75.4 years old. He’s already beaten the odds, and he knows that.

Whenever I see him these days, he always says something about it. Some joke or remark about how he doesn’t have much longer left, always said with a smile that conveys a sort of resignation and satisfaction. When you have eight hours on a motorcycle every week with no music, I guess you have plenty of time to think about that.

I hate it when he makes these jokes. I’ve experienced death before, but not as an adult. Not someone with half a lifetime of memories with this man who held me as a baby, who helped me learn how to shave, who helped me understand the kind of man I want to be. I don’t want to not have him. I don’t want my mom to wake up one morning and not be able to say hello to her Dad. But it will happen no matter what I do. Everyone will eventually go the way of all flesh.

The thing I can control is when I grieve and how.

I will not grieve for him while he is still here, because that is wasting time that we could be making birdhouses and benches.

I will not grieve for my friends while they’re still here. We still have movies to watch, songs to listen to, and mistakes to make. 

I will not grieve my world while it is still here. Change is natural, and even the most prolific institutions end eventually. We should enjoy learning through them while they’re here.

I will grieve my lost innocence. I miss the days when I thought the world was good or evil. I miss the dreams I had where I could touch the tallest mountain and the deepest sea. I miss the day before I knew things could end. I miss Rascal, my best friend.

Life is chaotic, with no way of knowing what will happen when we wake up tomorrow. Only one thing is for sure, that today is both the youngest you will ever be and the oldest you have ever been. We’re on a tightrope where the wind is always blowing, but our balance is getting better every day.

In recent years, I heard a companion phrase to Shaw’s: “Wisdom is wasted on the old.” As my peers and I grow older, I think we’ve started to understand that, even though we weren’t wrong when we were young, our beliefs were based on incomplete information. We didn’t understand what it means to age, our vulnerability. As the years pass by, we gain experience and wisdom, earned the hard way.