Who’s Ready to Die?

I’ve been thinking a lot about death lately (yeah, I’m a bundle of laughs, eh?) and then I woke up this morning to the news that a friend’s husband died suddenly last night. He was there one minute and gone the next. Heart attack. Massive.

I’ve been thinking about my own death and I guess everyone else’s as well, since we all will die and I know so many people who’ve lost loved ones in the past year or so, including me.  It’s such a theme in my life right now that I feel as if something is telling me to pay attention.

I’m not really afraid to die; I think that it may be the greatest thing that ever happens to us. We leave the bonds of our human bodies, our human frailty, our human pain and that sounds pretty damned good.

I’m not sure exactly what we become, but I believe we become a wonderful, loving energy. The same energy that animates all of us at our core; the energy of God/creator/life.

The tough part is those left behind, right? The human condition. The person that leaves us to become loving energy isn’t the one suffering. We cannot imagine life without their physical presence. We’re not ready to let them go, to walk the earth without them. We may even believe that they are indeed, in a ‘much better place’ and yet, we still mourn their passing. Not for them, but for us.

And that’s okay. I wish as we progressed and evolved, death would become easier for us, but it seems as if it’s even harder to accept. We live under the illusion that technology can fix anything;  that we shouldn’t die.  After all this is 2015! We can put a man on the moon, Skype, make robotic limbs, orbit the earth, hack into sophisticated computers, kill people without ever seeing them with drones and clone sentient beings in labs. Why on earth do we still die?

I think that we’re too removed from death anymore. From our food that comes pre-packaged, no longer resembling the living beings that provide it to the way people are whisked off to hospitals to die, we just never see it or absorb that it’s such an integral part of our lives. We tuck it away and don’t want to look and so we deny the inevitable.

We fear it like nothing else. One friend told me, “I’m afraid that it will hurt and that’s why I’m scared”. What doesn’t hurt? Life hurts and yet, we cling to it like drowning rats. I suspect that most deaths are quite peaceful and yet how would we know since we never see it? I suspect that those who work in health care, who see death daily, might have a different view than the rest of us, but I’ve never really heard any of them talk about it.

I’ve been reading and listening to various spiritual teachers regarding life and death and spirit. The consensus is that we are infinite spirits. We’re not really ‘born’ and we don’t really ‘die’; we morph or manifest or arrive in our human form and then we move on again. To what, I really don’t know, but the more I study, the more curious I become. You are energy; you are light; you are love, as are those you’ve lost. Don’t let the silly stuff of human life clip your wings. Nurture your soul because that’s really who you are. You are infinite.

The “New Normal”…..

I’m struggling to accept my dad’s death. I know that’s normal, but it doesn’t make it any easier. Loss is part of our human condition and we all have to accept it in our own time.

He died suddenly about 2 and a half weeks ago and it’s been such a whirlwind of wrapping my mom in warmth and security and working to get her out of the house and into an assisted living facility that I haven’t had any time to really grieve or mourn my dad’s absence.

I don’t feel guilt for that; it’s absolutely what my dad would have wanted of us. He was completely committed to my mother and once said that when she died, he wanted to die the next day. The best laid plans, right?

He was taking care of business right up until the moment he died doing lawn work in the back yard and since he raised 4 competent, pragmatic children we knew that he would expect us to step up and take care of the business at hand. So, we did.

Now, I’m thinking about him; about how I can never again pick up the phone to commiserate about our miserable Detroit Lions. My husband can’t call him for apple growing advice or get his opinion on fixing our crooked screen door. During the chaos and bustle immediately after his death, his absence was noted, but now it’s settling over me and I’m feeling the finality of his death.

I started writing this blog several years ago as I began my journey to learn to overcome bad habits, non-productive worries and ultimately let go of my need to control everything. I’ve come a long way on that path and I think that my progress helped immensely in the past few weeks. But now, how do you let go of your dad?

I feel like if I do that, he’s really gone; like a puff of smoke, he will dissipate and no longer be real and that makes me feel awful. But, I also know that I have to allow the realness of his death to sink in. Yes, there are many happy and funny memories, but he’s not here and that feels like part of me has vanished as well.

My dad was over 93 years old and from all appearances, strong and healthy. It almost seems like when someone lives that long,you start to think that maybe they’ll never go. We all marveled as my parents lived into their 80s and late 80s and then into their 90s. I’ve waited so long for the call that one of them was ill or dead, that when it came, I couldn’t grasp that it actually happened. My dad, in particular seemed immortal.

So, now we learn to live with what people call the ‘new normal’, which is code for ‘this situation sucks, but you’ll have to accept and adapt’. And that’s the truth. All of us do it everyday and sometimes it’s a huge sea-change to your normal and sometimes it’s a minor zig zag.

My struggles are no different than anyone else’s. It’s life. It’s why we all have to learn to let go of our fantasies that life can ever be anything other than random and painful. As the Buddhists teach us, we all suffer together as part of the human race. We lose everything that is dear to us and we all die. It’s so obvious and true and yet, we fight it because we hope it can be different. It can’t.

I will hold my dad in my heart and my mind and love him that way. I will look at the faces of my siblings, nieces and nephews and see him in them. So many of us have his eyes and his silly sense of humor. We all love ice cream and pie.

He was able to see our little farm last fall and we have some of his tools and implements that will help us nurture and foster our land and our crops. He hated to see anything go to waste and we will honor him as we plant and harvest and care for my mom. We’re okay dad; you did good.

The winter of my discontent…

This has been a particularly brutal winter and seeing as how it’s our first in this location, we didn’t quite know what to expect.

We figured that since we’d spent the last 14 years in the foothills and mountains of Colorado, there was nothing that northern Michigan could throw at us that we couldn’t handle.

We didn’t anticipate the worst winter in many years; a potential record-setter for misery.   Looks like we’re getting a taste of the old ‘worst case scenario’ right off the bat.

So, as I was looking out at what seems like the 1000^th day in a row of snow, I started imagining what it would be like if I could strap into a time machine.  And the question arose:  would I go forward…or backward?

I’ve never been a live-in-the-past, go backward kind of person.  Oh, I have fond memories and I do admit that I’ve found myself longing to return to the college dorm for a few months of irresponsible nonsense, but overall, I tend to look ahead.

But, ‘ahead’ seems murkier than usual.  I’m not sure if it’s age or my still weakened mojo or some regrets that are leaking like a puddle, under my door of confidence.  It could be the weather and the cabin fever that my husband and I are suffering from.  Or maybe the lack of sunlight, which doesn’t seem like such a big deal until you experience it.

I guess what I’m admitting to is a desire to go back in time.  A year, two years…15 years, even.  There are things that I wish I could change or re-think or just do-over.  It’s entirely non-productive, but I can’t quite shake it.

The thing is, there is no way of knowing if a different decision or path or reaction would have resulted in a better outcome.  As one of my favorite Taoist proverbs teaches us, “Who’s to say what’s right or wrong; who’s to say what’s good or bad?”  We are faced with choices, every second of every day and we make them.  Period.  But still…what if, right?

So, let’s remember that we can only deal with right now; with this particular moment.  I can count on spring arriving sometime in the next few months.  Followed by summer, with its glorious warmth and sun and water.  The things we moved here for.

Then autumn and harvest arrive, bringing beauty so intense that you want to cry every time you crest a hill or turn a corner.  Then, winter returns and it’s time to go inside; time to re-new and reassess and nest and hunker down.  We need this time to re-connect with ourselves, for better or for worse.

After my dog Chili died this past October, a friend came over with a whole box full of spring bulbs to plant on her grave.  I was so grateful, but in so much pain, that I sleep-walked through the process.  We planted and covered the bulbs, as I had covered her little body and soul.  My friend could look ahead when I could not.

Those bulbs are resting under nearly 3 feet of snow, but in a few months, they will emerge in stages.  Crocus first, followed by daffodils and tulips.  A reminder that no matter how badly we want to go back, we can’t.  There is a rhythm and a familiar cycle, but it’s always propelling us forward and onward.

And so, here I am.  Right in the middle of the season that forces us to go inward; to rest and renew and struggle and squirm and wait.  So, there is the lesson.  Don’t struggle; don’t wait.  No past, no future, just now.  Ugh…so hard.

That first crocus will be a welcome sight and a reminder that we need periods of rest and death and destruction, in order for the new blooms to appear.  After this particular winter, I should sprout something magnificent when the time is right.