Death Gifts

I know a women who is so sweet and genuine that just hearing her name warms my heart.  Her mother is in the long process of dying right now and my heart aches for her. 

My dad died of cancer last year.  

Not one but two of my cousins lost their sons last year.

Not one but two of my grandmothers died this summer.

We lost our baby boy just three months ago.

Not one but two of my dearest women-friends both lost their mothers when they were just little girls.  Another woman with whom I share a close friendship also lost her dad last year.  And I'm sure I'm forgetting many more.  

Death touches us all.  Yet, as the Tibetan yogi Milarepa so eloquently stated, "Preoccupied with the world, who thinks of death, until it arrives like thunder?"

Oddly enough, I did.  I grew up around death -- around the grieving.  My dad was a funeral director.  This was his family's business.  He loved his work.  He loved helping people.  His work created plenty of opportunity for me to think about death.  Still, I wonder -- does thinking about death actually help prepare us for the loss of a loved one?  Maybe... but only if we choose our thoughts wisely.  Ruminating on it won't help.  Getting close to our feelings about it will.  When we get close enough, we can see the preciousness of it -- we can see the gifts death brings.

As my dad was dying, I noticed how free I felt to love him.  Every little crappy thing I was holding onto melted away... and I realized that in the light of death, we are free to love.  Somehow that is helping me now.

Earlier today, I posted a Buddhist parable called, Kisa Gotami and the Mustard Seed.  This is one of Buddhism's more popular stories.  Knowing our spiritual beliefs, the officiant at our son's service selected this story and read it aloud graveside.  (Of course, we all wept.)  As the story goes, after Kisa Gotami's baby boy dies, she is overcome by her grief and carries her boy's body around the town in search of someone who can help him.  In the end, she realizes that death touches us all and finally lays her boy's body, and her grief down.  

In my grief, I'm seeing that each day is a choice.  I can let my grief overcome me.  Or, I can chose to let my son's death inform my life with sweetness -- with real knowledge of the preciousness of each day.  In this way, death gives birth to life and (once again) I see that they are not two simple happenings -- but one.

Where the light enters you...

Trust your wound to a teacher's surgery.
Flies collect on a wound. They cover it,
those flies of your self-protecting feelings,
your love for what you think is yours.
Let a teacher wave away the flies
and put a plaster on the wound.
Don't turn your head. Keep looking
at the bandaged wound. That's where
the light enters you.
And don't believe for a moment
that you're healing yourself.

Rumi

Long before we lost Julien, I loved this poem by Rumi.  "Keep looking at the bandaged wound. That's where the light enters you," he says.  I've discussed this poem many times but now that my bandaged places are bleeding through, I feel challenged to look again. 

In the days following Julien's birth, I remember telling myself, "just be present," again and again.  No matter what I was feeling (panic, nausea, hysteria) I knew I had to just stay with it -- to ride it like a horrible, inescapable roller-coaster.  I also kept reminding myself (and our daughter) that the most intense feelings would soon pass.

My dad had just died last year and those memories were all too fresh in my mind.  When Julien passed, I recalled everything I felt with my dad and knew just to hold on to the present moment for dear life.  With a white-knuckle grip, I told myself again and again that each day would get easier -- and it did.

This was a HUGE exercise in both trust and in acceptance.  By letting every emotion wash over me like a river, I think the pain became less intense.  I'm not saying that it doesn't still hurt.  It is to this day the most grueling thing I've ever felt... and turning into the pain sometimes seems like self-immolation.  Still, for me, just being here for all of it feels better than running away from it.

I think Rumi is suggesting that our suffering is our salvation.  Our capacity to feel deep sorrow and profound joy is what defines this human experience... and the two are inseparable.  But is all suffering salvific?  Perhaps.  

Without it, how would we discover grace?