The Endgame

Newsletter #90 - The person you might have been

Toronto, December 15, 2024

The person you might have been

When somebody, particularly an old person, looks back at their life (geriatric psychiatrists call this “life review”), they may question the choices they made and imagine how things might have been had they decided otherwise. Suppose they had chosen differently at some important point—where to live, who to marry, what career to pursue? What person might they then have become? This question is caught by Robert Frost’s famous (often misunderstood) poem The Road Not Taken. The poem begins: “Two roads diverged in a yellow wood,/ And sorry I could not travel both...”

Carlos Lozada, a distinguished opinion columnist for The New York Times and winner of a Pulitzer Prize, was born in Peru. He and his family chose to leave that country and make a life in the United States. In a splendid New York Times essay, Lozada muses about immigration, generally and personally. “No one forced us aboard that plane. I’ll forever wonder if it was the right choice... What alternate life, what pains and joys and regrets, might I have known had the choice been different? There is a parallel existence always shadowing me, a version I glimpse in the cousins and friends who remained. What if I’d stayed?”

I was born in England, emigrated to Canada as a child (that was a decision of my father), and have now lived in Canada for 70 years. But what if I’d stayed in England, or returned as an adult? What person would I be now? Like Lozada, I am shadowed by a parallel existence. It is underlined when I visit England, as I often do. As I walk down a London street, as I visit cousins and friends who remained, I ask myself: Suppose I had lived here all along? Suppose I had never left? Suppose I had made my life in this place?

What if I’d stayed?

Abandonment of a long-time romantic relationship, or the choice of one partner over another, is another road not taken. Suppose you had decided otherwise? To repeat Lozada: “What alternate life, what pains and joys and regrets, might I have known had the choice been different?” The Pew Research Center reported in 2020 that “roughly half of social media users have used these sites to check up on an ex-romantic partner.” Why would someone do this? Curiosity, loneliness, reverting to the familiar, boredom, or simply sinking into the “bottomless online pit?” Perhaps someone checks up on an ex-romantic partner in order to fuel the imagination of a parallel existence. What would life have been like had they not left? What person might they have been?

I spent most of my career as a lawyer. But that was an accident. Many years ago, I was a graduate student of political science, working on a thesis. Things were not going well. One night, in a bar with a friend who was a law student, I was complaining about my academic problems. “My thesis is going nowhere,” I said, ordering another beer. “Why don’t you switch to law?” my friend said casually. The thought had never occurred to me. “What a good idea!” I said. In those days, at that particular university, it was easy to switch courses. No-one cared much what you did. Twenty-four hours later I was a law student.

And that was how I ended up as a corporate lawyer on Bay Street, helping the rich get richer. I could have decided differently. I could have had a different life. I could have lived in a different place. I could have been a different person. Lazada writes about Lima, the place where he was born: “My longing is for a place that no longer exists, just like that other person I might have been.”

*****

Some reader comments on Newsletter #89 (“Grief”)

A reader writes: “I wonder if ‘grief’ standing alone captures the aspects of remembering, adapting and learning. I lost my twin brother a year ago and find that he is more present and vigilant than ever; in some ways I feel he has died for both of us and left me a stronger person to carry on.”

A powerful comment: “On grief …. You’ve described it perfectly. The pain of the loss and the hovering loneliness never leave. You just get used to them... [T]he loss of a spouse is not only the end of a married life and love; it is also the loss of a social life, of a lifestyle, plans, hopes, security and of self-identity. It is terrifying. It is chaos. It is despair. It is confusion. I have been enormously lucky in having been found by my new friends who have never known me as one half of a couple, but who accept me as just ‘me.’ And, there are many longer friendships that have survived and have kept me going. For those new and ‘older’ friendships, I am grateful.”

From a devoted follower of The Endgame: “‘Grief is the continuation of love’ reminded me of what Andrew Garfield said after losing his mother: ‘I hope this grief stays with me, because it's all the unexpressed love that I didn't get to tell her.’”( See Andrew Garfield on grief as the unexpressed love.)

A West Coast reader writes: “I think about (and feel) grief every day, it seems. The memory of people I’ve loved and who have died accompanies my every breath, no matter how long they’ve been gone. They populate my dreams (although not often enough) and I sometimes talk to them when I’m in need of advice. Recently, a friend died to whom I hadn’t spoken in some years. But she and I spent a formative, strange and enthusiastic decade together (our 20’s). She helped to shape me, until we fell out and never spoke again. Upon hearing of her death, I was prostrate with grief. This extreme reaction was a surprise to say the least, until I realized I was, in fact, mourning the death of my youth… The final paragraph of this week’s Endgame describes the transformation of grief over time beautifully.”

And from an Australian reader: “I’m not sure I agree with your statement that ‘grief is a mature emotion, not fully experienced by a child.’ A child’s experience of grief is different to an adult's but no less intense. Losing a parent as a child can lead to lifelong trauma. My father died when I was two years old. Unlike most 1950s fathers, he actively cared for me, changed nappies, fed, bathed me, etc. I don’t remember being told he’d died, but pictures of me before and after the event show a transition from a happy, smiling child to one who was always frowning and cranky... I lost a school friend when I was eleven, a cousin when I was fourteen, and then various friends and family over my adult years, culminating with my mother when I was 48. The grief I felt as an adult was no more intense than that I felt as a child.”