My grandfather died last Thursday, at the age of 70. He was afflicted with a lung condition that eventually caused his breathing to stop. It obviously caused my absence from the wiki for a few days surrounding this fateful event. Aside from being part of my family, however, my grandfather was also the reason that I began watching Lost.
He urged me to catch up and start watching Lost at the beginning of season three. I was reluctant to such a large commitment, but after a few nudges from him, I picked up the first season DVD. It was (of course) addictive, and I finished it in a week. Season two came afterward, and I finished it in another week. My grandfather and I would bounce theories off each other constantly, throughout seasons three and four. He was the only person in my family (besides me) who really enjoyed the science fiction element of Lost, and we had many hour-long conversations about just what the hell was going on to those survivors.
A few days after “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” aired, my grandfather was taken to the hospital and put into intensive care. The next Wednesday, he was almost unable to watch “LaFleur,” due to his drifting in and out of sleep. I never got to theorize with him about that episode, because he died the next day.
It certainly raised within me a scary question: what if we don’t make it to the end? Like the survivors on that island, there’s no guarantee that we’ll get to see the big reveal. But there’s something that my grandfather said to me a few weeks before he died. Things weren’t looking great for him even then, and he knew it. We were having one of our numerous discussions about Lost when he said one of the many profound things he’s been known to say.
“I’m probably not going to make it to the end of the show,” he said, somewhat sadly. ”And I might not get all the answers. But I haven’t worried about the answers for a while.” He paused, a grin spreading on his face. “I’ve learned to love the questions.”
He was right. Too many of us complain that there aren’t enough answers being given, and that there are too many questions popping up. But it is a mystery show, after all. We should all learn to love the questions.
