The Fear of Possible Patterns

Dearest Rachel –

So… now it’s 2023. Soon, it will have been two years since the accident that took you from us… and in a couple of months, it will have been another two years since your mom’s passing… and yet another two years since your dad, when this all started. I don’t know about you, but I’ve begun to see a bit of a pattern here, even if it’s only coincidence. Every odd-numbered year, we’ve lost someone during the first quarter of the year; it leaves me wondering if this is likely to continue into this year, and if so, who will be leaving this time.

To be sure, I’m aware that there isn’t a connection between each of your departures; sure, your folks were getting up in years, so neither of their passings came as any particular surprise. In fact, the only pattern that might have been noticed was that they were both eighty-nine years of age when the man with the scythe and hourglass showed up for them. By those lights, you should have been expected to stick around until 2059 or so. The idea that you might be gone at any time soon never crossed my mind.

But after losing one parent in 2017, and the other in 2019, apparently your turn came in 2021, leaving me to wonder what might happen this year, particularly in this first quarter. Had your accident happened in March, that month would be particularly freaking me out by now, but it’s not as if there’s enough snow left by then to encourage folks to come up to Wisconsin to indulge in winter sports, so the circumstances involved in your demise would not have come to pass at that point. Be that as it may, I find myself wondering about what the next few months in particular might bring.

It’s not as if there aren’t reasonable fears, either, although to think of various people being near the point of departure seems to be something of an exaggeration of circumstances. Dad has been having particular difficulties with his feeding tube lately, and while he wouldn’t be considered anywhere near death’s door – certainly nowhere near those days in early 2019, when we (and more to the point, you) had to decide whether to attend to your mother or be with me and my dad when both seemed likely to go at almost the same time – he’s already older than anyone in his particular wing of the family has gotten in three generations. He’s been given a lot of time, and from all appearances, is likely to have a reasonable amount more, but he’s also aware of the fact that he isn’t getting any younger. In particular, I’m not sure what to make of his apparent resignation toward the fact that he’s not likely to ever be able to eat an actual meal again; there’s probably more to the situation than I’m aware of, but it sometimes feels like he’s given up, which never seems like a good sign. Likewise, I understand that it’s necessary to make plans for when one is gone (which we’ve learned to our regret, as without a will, your estate has been, let’s just say problematic, to ultimately wrap up), but having certain arrangements discussed at Christmas dinner is… disconcerting, to say the least.

It leaves me wondering about the travel plans I’ve made for the next year or so, and whether it’s okay for me (and Daniel, in certain cases) to be out of the country for an extended period of time. On the other hand, Dad seems to be not just approving, but excited, about those plans, and is more invested in where we’re going, and what the arrangements are, than I am. I’d make a comment about living vicariously through me, but I suppose that’s a common thing among parents and children after a certain point in their relationship, so why not now? I just hope he manages to hang on long enough to follow me and Daniel as we wander the earth.

But of course, none of us are given infinite time – and for those that seem to have been (consider all the memes that used to be made about the Queen’s apparent immortality back in the day, for instance), it must be awful as so many peers fall by the wayside along the way. It would be nice if Mom and Dad were to have as many years as your folks – which would give them at least another half-decade – but as you have proven, there are no guarantees given out. Birth certificates don’t come with an expiry date, indicating that you’re safe until then (imagine the chaos and danger some of us would get up to if we knew we would be, and how absolutely terrified we might be when the date finally arrived!); we just have to watch our step each day in its turn.

At any rate, I know there’s no reason to necessarily expect anything to happen within the next three months, but after three straight odd-numbered years like these, one can’t help but wonder. I’m sure it makes me look awfully superstitious, but until (and unless) it is broken, I can’t help but wonder. After all, there have been patterns seen like this before, and observations made upon them by those who appeared to fall victim to them:

The historical curiosity… is indeed thought-provoking: ‘Since 1840, every man who has entered the White House in a year ending in zero has not lived to leave the White House alive’… As to ‘what effect, if any, this will have on [my] future presidential aspirations,’ I feel that the future will have to necessarily answer this for itself – both as to my aspirations and my fate should I have the privilege of occupying the White House.
On face value, I daresay, should anyone take this phenomenon to heart… anyone, that is, who aspires to change his address to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue… that most probably the landlord would be left with a ‘For Rent’ sign hanging on the gate-house door.

John F. Kennedy, letter dated 1960

The man who wrote this, of course, wound up ‘proving’ the validity of the alleged Curse of Tecumseh, as it has been referred to (due to President Harrison’s command during the battle of Tippecanoe, in which Tecumseh was killed), only for it to lose its power as the assassination of Reagan failed in 1981, and every President thereafter managing to survive his term.

So these coincidences are patterns until they aren’t. And while we will all join you eventually at some point, here’s hoping I’m mistaken in seeing one here.

Wish us luck, honey; we’re going to need it.