What is the Opposite of Winning?
Time seems to pass so quickly at times and yet so slowly at others. Since Hans’s death yesterday it seems as though so much more time has passed, due maybe to the unending beautiful and uplifting support we’ve been receiving. Your photos, memories, condolences, messages, and gifts are overwhelming and so touching. Even with our imperfections, we each are loved by so many.
In our hearts we hold pain, grief, and sadness. In our hearts we also hold the funny, heartwarming, and silly memories of Hans and his sweet, playful, and comedic personality (and he was a great snuggler). What we do not hold in our hearts is any hate, anger, or bitterness, thus our hearts will heal.
Hans really played a great game in life. We’ve been chuckling about my copious use of analogies this past week since the accident happened. I understand the need for analogies. Eric has spent years working hard to attain his education and vast experience in the nuclear science and technology field. A general lay person cannot possibly understand the science of it as he does, unless they attain a comparable amount of education and experience in the field. It was much the same with Hans’s healthcare professionals this past week. We think because we’ve read a few Wikipedia articles, watched a few History Channel shows, and read a few newspapers we’re all mini-experts in everything. But at times we have to let the experts do their job and trust them. And their use of analogies help us better understand complex issues.
I offered this analogy today to Hans’s comrades who are facing the third death of their own in only six weeks: I believe that life is like a chess game. I am hopeful that most of you have played the game and can appreciate its magnificent complexity.
We are each a player on the one side of our chess set of life. We are each playing with the Master (God, and/or Science/Biology, or Bobby Fischer). We have free will to make the choices of our moves in the game. When playing with a novice, the Master can calculate virtually every we move we might make, as well as the ultimate outcome of the game based on the moves we do choose to make, but our choices are rarely, if ever, made for us.
There are lots of playbooks out there to help us play a better game. God sent Jesus to show us how to humanly play the game with love, Science teaches us safer ways to play the game (like wearing a helmet as Hans always did when skateboarding and was on the night of the accident) and we can choose whether to reference those playbooks or not. But the game goes on.
The Master can make moves to propel us in a certain direction (or things can happen to change our direction), and we can choose to respond to those moves or not. How we play the game is up to us. One can just move a pawn back and forth continually, and the game goes on a long and boring time. One can make a reckless move and the game can be over in a flash. Or one can play a bold, complex, exciting, challenging, thoughtful and fun game. Like Hans did. But in the end the Master always wins the game. We always lose the game. In the end we all die.
Of course our pieces are removed from the board as the game goes on, and we gain a few that we take from the Master. We can be selfish and keep those pieces (knowledge, lessons, talents, love) or we can share them with a player next to us in need of help. Before his death Hans chose to be an organ donor. As a toddler Hans needed to work on sharing, but he was a great sharer last night: by 8:00 p.m. (Saturday) his liver was successfully transplanted, as was one of his kidneys, and the surgery for the other kidney transplant was still in progress. Because he was never declared brain dead (he would have liked hearing that) Hans’s heart was not recovered for transplant though it will be used for other medical research. This is solely due to medical ethics. And there will be so many other stories of sharing (corneas, bone, skin, etc.).
It is our hope that we will make the best use of the pieces Hans and other loved ones have given us. We might damage or lose a few of the pieces along the way, but let’s use them to play a spectacular game! So, what’s the opposite of winning? Certainly not losing.
The opposite of winning is quitting. It’s OK to lose and lose regularly, but please don’t quit.
One of Zatha’s and Hans’s dear friends, Sydney Harris, said it well, “Hans lived every day like it was already heaven on earth.”
P.S. Hans’s musical talents went beyond his drumming and percussion and into playing DJ and finding new music talent. We learned from Zatha about Hans’s new favorite song, which he shared with her before his camping trip. We listened to this song every night in the hospital last week with Hans as he lay in his bed, just before we said goodnight to him. Click on the link below to hear Akiine and her song titled “Sunglassey.” The lyrics of the live version (no longer on the web) we listened to at the time speak of ‘horses on the beach’ (which he saw on Assateague Island during the camping trip), ‘flow with kindness,’ ‘flow with love.’ We hope you enjoy this song as much as Hans did and we do.
Flow with love from all the Loewens.
