On Death And Dying

A lot of people I know right now seem to be facing the death and dying process. It is likely that my age marks the onset of funerals for parents, parents of friends, unexpected deaths of friends, and, even the rare and unbearable loss of a child.

While six years ago I was petrified by death, I have come to be less fearful today. Still living in some denial to its growing proximity, I can look at my relationship to death with curiosity. Many my age push it further from view by hanging on to a youthful exterior - painted on by botox or plastic surgery. Others seem more comfortable with the physical changes that mark the passage toward death.

I think they know the sufficiency of life. A Taoist saying goes, "knowing the sufficiency of contentment, one is content in the sufficient." At some point in the aging process, there emerges an overwhelming sense of contentment - a contentment of the sufficiency of life. I think this sense of contentment arises when the beauty of the continuum (birth to death to birth to death) is realized and a great appreciation of the constancy (and your own part in it) emerges. In that contentment is a release of fear of death and dying and an openness to just seeing it as it is.

To study your relationship with death and dying is a way to discover the sufficiency of life. I've been able to study it more clearly as the death and dying around me are one or two steps removed, the death of a friend's father, a cousin's wife, a stepbrother's sister. These somewhat distant relationships allow me to look from the space in between Grief and 'I' to reach a deeper level of understanding. Too close, or unexpected (when death arrives before its time), the knowledge may be smothered in grief, anger, or fear. How we relate to death is a practice in knowing ourselves.

My good friend's father is dying and as she sits by his side, day in and day out, I was inspired to write this poem for her:

Walk gently past the landscape of life to enter the openness of heart.

Untouched for eternity, beating steadily like the heart of life.

Rising and falling ever-present

The heart beat of birth and death

Mark the passage of time

So that we may see the Heart of Eternity

Quiescent at Death

The Heart beats on

In Mother Earth, in all our children, in plants, insects, and animals

And evolution to come,

In rocks glistening black through running streams

In skies of blue reflection

In the single sparrow's song of awakening

In the squirrel dangerously moving across wavering branches

In the fall leaves of red and gold.

Look around and see the heart of those before you vibrating in earth and sky

Their hearts released from the steel traps inflicted by life

By the self-centered view of nature

Heaven and Hell exist only in these steel traps

The Heart unfolds in death released from duality

Only to Embrace Itself.

Comments

[BRUMALIA]

Excellent! Very spiritual!

[KellyJadon]

Great Article AND Comments
Last week I buried my father's body. After 8 months of struggling with pancreatic cancer, my father admitted two days prior to his passing that he was dying. I phoned hospice and they were available in our home for the last 24 hours. Though the process was sad, it was also peaceful.
My message is this: if you ever have the opportunity to be with a loved one as he/she is dying, do not be afraid. You will appreciate the experience, probably grow to be a better individual, and understand that it was truly a privilege to have been present.

[RaderBarbarian]

As I reach "the age when people die," after years of remarkably pain-free and illness-free life, health becomes more and more an issue for me. No major health concerns - yet - but enough have come slong to make me more aware of my physical self and life. As we shared our tales of aches and pains, my sister, who is four years older than I, said that aging appeared to her to be a process of "letting go." Both of us actually took comfort in that realization; somehow one (at least this one) becomes at peace with this "letting go", it seems.

Recently as I struggled with a newly arrived health issue, I mentioned to a friend how I have begun to see aging as a process of "letting go."

This friend (in his 50s; I am nearing 70), asked, "Letting go of what??

"Of life," I said.

He recoiled in shock! "Don't say that! Don't even think that! That is not going to happen!"

He did not want to discuss that at all, and the conversation awkwardly ended.

But of course "it" is going to happen.

I was surprised by his reaction. I was not lamenting the "letting go." I find the process curious, quite interesting, just the next step of life, and nothing of which to be afraid.

Is it the difference in our ages that made this conversation so difficult for us to have, I wonder.

[michellerenee]

This sounds alot like what is in the book, On Death and Dying, by David Kessler & Elisabeth Keubler-Ross; a very inspirational, personal and wonderful work for those facing this inevitable process.

[larry278]

The comment above cites Dr Keubler-Ross. She is a practical source of inspiration and growth for the non-theistic who dread the notion of any sort of reincarnation. She avoids dwelling on blessed, blessed oblivion. As far as I know she never wrote of it or taught it & didn't advocate euthenisia or suicide. But she makes the notion of oblivion tolerable which may lead to the desire for oblivion after earthly life ends.
Workers in hospice care & their clients have been know to study her works while seeking comforting insights.

[jeanruss]

Walter Russell, a 20th century American genius, was living proof that we do not die, that reincarnation is a fact of life-his life story and his incredible legacy will make anyone a believer-

[Dap]

Dear Dr. Smalley,

Very spiritual, quite aesthetic, comforting.

Agape.

[tcagle]

I think fear of death has morphed into fear of aging in our society. If we valued wisdom instead of physical appearances, I think most of us would find the transition to older life more tolerable.
Death itself need not be feared. It just happens.

[soupcity]

I was with my mom-in-law through her struggle with dementia and dying. I wouldn't trade the experience for anything. My own father's death traumitized me for years, it was sudden and shocking. The process of a peaceful death, with loved ones near, in her own bed, was as beautiful to me as a birth. It truly changed my life and perspective. So last week, when my brother died, after a hard life full of physical and mental disease, the experience I had with her was the one I drew comfort from. I think my brother finally found what he was looking for. Thank you for this beautiful post.

[RaisingAwareness]

Most people have been convinced by
"authorities" in science and medicine, that they are nothing more than a collection of cells and chemicals, which after body death, cease to exist. Those authorities are quite wrong and are just parroting the popular science of the day and ignoring the wealth of scientific data which disproves this theory.

We are not our bodies. We are actually immortal spiritual beings that use and inhabit a body. To help you better understand that concept watch the video on the Reincarnation of a WWII pilot. It's a real eye opener for those who have not yet been exposed to this knowledge.

This video is in 2 parts:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_EWwzFwUOxA


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5965wcH2Kx0&mode=related&search=

[babyboomerorig]

Having been with my brother and mother during their last minutes, death no longer has a terrifying grip. I saw the animals leave an hour before death and return an hour after, both times an eagle flew over the fields, followed by a herd of white tail deer in the fields.

I sensed the veil of life lift from the room and another sense of total serenity for both my brother and mother. They were out of pain. We were releived that their pain was over and peace could come for both of them.

We'll always miss them, but know they're at peace.

[Beatitudes]

What a lovely poem. Would you object if I and others perhaps post their own words? This is from my book, The Beatitudes, as my character visits her father in the hospital. Lyn LeJeune
The Beatitudes Network-Rebuilding New Orleans
www.beatitudesinneworleans.blogspot.com
"He has read his Dante well," said my father. He was sitting up in his hospital bed, a large bandage on his forehead, an IV connected to his arm. His eyes were swollen and his face, slowly regaining the color of a strong and good man. I hadn"t known until later how much he had suffered and endured in the years he had been a captive. Le Armee Blanc had taken his life, demanded knowledge that he would not render and perhaps did not have in the first place. I smoothed his beautiful hair from his face, leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. His aura was still as it always was when I first looked at him, when he held Kenneth: full, loving and strong. I turned and walked to the open window and looked across the street at a small park where children played. Their voices were clear and joyful and absent the crooked cares of this world; their journeys were just beginning. Several little boys were carrying Easter baskets, running from bush to clumps of newly mown grass, squealing in unbounded joy when they found a colored egg. Easter and all things must rise and truth shall be known in the world. Jesus is just one symbol of universal compassion. I had lived more than one lifetime in the past few weeks, had become a woman that no child, no young girl, could even hope to be without the magic that had nurtured me in the soil of my home in the swamp. Perhaps I would go back, to that place many say we cannot return.