Matt Haig
Matt Haig is an author I’ve loved since I first read The Midnight Library, one of his most renowned books. His writing style is one that enables a reader of any age to experience and connect with.
The Midnight Library is a novel about the number of choices we are faced with in any given moment and choosing the right path for our lives. Being grateful for where we are at in life and understanding that this is the only path we could have walked in order to be who we were meant to be is a critical theme throughout this novel.
The text promotes deep reflection for the reader, and allows a genuine sense of happiness, contendedness, and gratefulness to be developed by the end.
How to Stop Time
More relatable, though, is Haig’s novel How to Stop Time, which I’ve most recently read, and it did not disappoint! Within the first couple of pages, I’d already started highlighting the quotes I did not want to forget. One of the most bittersweet qualities of humanity is that we are mortal.
How to Stop Time is about appreciating the time we are given. So often in life, humans become bogged down with what is happening in the world, or they are busy being unhappy with were they are at because they long for something other than what they have.
This novel truly asks readers to stop and enjoy each moment that can be experienced. We are meant to slow down, appreciate the people we have in our lives, and understand that while there is no such thing as immortality, we can live fully within each moment, and even the moments between moments, to create immortal memories.
Wishing I Could Stop Time
I was in the middle of reading this novel when I got the call that I needed to fly to Phoenix and say goodbye to my grandfather. My grandfather was one of the last remaining Vietnam veterans to be alive, and he struggled with his health for as long as I can remember.
His move to Arizona to improve his health (the cold temps of Colorado really bothered him) created a distance, not out of lack of love, but a lack of proximity. Life keeps us busy and we never have enough time to devote to taking time off work, taking trips, and no matter what we do in today’s world, there never seems to be enough money.
However, I got the phone call, booked a $500 flight, and caught a Lyft from the airport straight to the hospital. I arrived at the hospital around 10pm with my sister and brother. As we went in to see him, we weren’t sure what to do. Seeing my grandfather in the hospital was nothing new. We’d seen him in a hospital bed too many times to count: open heart surgery, high blood pressure, clot removals, heart problems, kidney transplant. The list goes on.
But this time was different. I’d never seen him so unresponsive before, and I’d made the mistake of thinking, “Oh he will pull through, just like all the other times.” But seeing him restrained and sedated because he continued to have anxiety attacks, and seeing him on the highest flow oxygen possible… that was the moment I wished I could stop time. And not only stop time, but rewind it. I wanted to go back to every moment I’d ever said I’d get out there to see him and just do it. I wanted to rewind back to when he was always so full of life and jokes whether in a hospital bed or not. I wanted to go back to when I was just a little girl sitting in her grandfather’s lap while he called her "Darlin’”.
But I couldn’t. I couldn’t go back, and I couldn’t stop time.
And that’s the funny thing about life and death and time. They are all connected. Every death you experience remains connected. His death reminded me of feelings felt when I’d lost my brother, as well as the numerous other lives I have known and lost. It is one continuous string of emotion with each individual life attached, and the more loss you experience, the heavier the string gets.
Coincidence? I think not.
Despite this loss, it is one that makes sense to me, because we aren’t immortal, and my grandpa fought the good fight. I do find it interesting how my life aligned this way though. I had thought about picking up Haig’s How to Stop Time weeks before I finally did, and then as I’m in the middle of it, life happened that aligned with the concept of living fully while you still can.
Or, maybe that is just what makes writers amazing writers. They force a reader to see the connections that already exist between the lesson that lies between its pages and the life the reader is living.
I am grateful to Haig for making me stop and reflect on my priorities in life, for reminding me what is truly important because it is so easy to forget. Mostly, I am grateful to myself for finally taking the steps I need to take to fully live the life I want.
Here’s to those we’ve loved, those we’ve lost, and all the memories made in those ever-fleeting moments.
