There is an interesting distinction between birth and death of others. At a minimum we normally get nine months to prepare for birth, however death often comes without warning and we are often ill prepared for its arrival.
Death is on my mind this morning as the company where I work grieves the sudden death of a colleague who passed over the weekend. This person was relatively young in form and her death was not predicated by any known illness. It is times when death comes unannounced and unpredicted that death seems to have the greatest impact on others. It is at times like this when people question the “why” of death and also face the mortality of their form as they consider the mystery and uncertainty or maybe the certainty of this journey. The tears fall for the one whom will be missed and many will also shed tears over the fear of facing their own unknown end.
We each have an expiration date for when life as we know it in this form will cease to exist. This also means that everyone whom we have a relationship with also has an expiration date. Truth is we don’t much like to think about the fact that this part of our journey and the human journey of every person we know is finite. For most it is much more comfortable to take for granted that each of us has a tomorrow in this form. However it is the choice not to view the inevitable death of our form as something that will happen and could happen at any given moment that leaves us ill prepared for the sudden death of other people in our life. It is our avoidance of death that creates the grief that we feel when suddenly someone we know ceases to exist in this physical form. We go to great lengths to not know death. In most Western cultures death has become a sanitized process which is handled for us by funeral homes. The dead our quietly removed and the body is processed, cleaned up, dressed and placed on display for loved ones to say goodbye to at a viewing. Children are often exempted from even the process of the viewing as we are afraid that they might be traumatized and not understand this thing we call death. We fear the question that may be asked by children as we struggle with our own perspective on death and how we can articulate that to a child. Thus we continue to perpetuate a fear of death borne of our own unawareness of death, our misunderstanding and our fear of death.
How do we prepare for unexpected death? The answer I believe is relatively simple and that is to understand that death is unpredictable, that any one of us could be gone from this form tomorrow and that we love each other as if this was our last moment to express our love. Some of the inevitable questions for all of us when an unexpected death happens are what our last conversation was like, did that person know how much I loved them and how much they meant to me? When we love each other in every moment we fear not that those we love will not know how much we love them if they or we should suddenly leave this form. Love does not fear death, for love understands that death is simply a transforming process, a re-birth if you will to another experience, to another level. Death is not the end of who we are, it is simply a shift in form.
When we fully grasp that our purpose is to love and that we love in all of our forms it is then that we begin to accept death as it comes and not question the whys and the what ifs for we know that our love and the love of the one who no longer shares this physical journey with never dies.
It is in the understanding and acceptance of death that we find peace, for when we fully accept death of this form as it comes then we are better prepared for the loss of others in our life and for the inevitable death of our form. It is with this knowing that any death, particularly sudden death no longer shakes us for we accept and understand that death is not something to be feared, it is not the end of our loved ones, it is not the death of us and that in many ways death is a celebration of a life lived of the next step of our journey and not the grieving of a life ended.
If we truly got it, truly understood death for what it is and what it isn’t we would deliver a commencement speech rather than a eulogy for death would be viewed more like a graduation then as an end of being.
Remember to love as if there is no tomorrow and love as if today is forever and you will always love enough!
There is an interesting distinction between birth and death of others. At a minimum we normally get nine months to prepare for birth, however death often comes without warning and we are often ill prepared for its arrival.
Death is on my mind this morning as the company where I work grieves the sudden death of a colleague who passed over the weekend. This person was relatively young in form and her death was not predicated by any known illness. It is times when death comes unannounced and unpredicted that death seems to have the greatest impact on others. It is at times like this when people question the “why” of death and also face the mortality of their form as they consider the mystery and uncertainty or maybe the certainty of this journey. The tears fall for the one whom will be missed and many will also shed tears over the fear of facing their own unknown end.
We each have an expiration date for when life as we know it in this form will cease to exist. This also means that everyone whom we have a relationship with also has an expiration date. Truth is we don’t much like to think about the fact that this part of our journey and the human journey of every person we know is finite. For most it is much more comfortable to take for granted that each of us has a tomorrow in this form. However it is the choice not to view the inevitable death of our form as something that will happen and could happen at any given moment that leaves us ill prepared for the sudden death of other people in our life. It is our avoidance of death that creates the grief that we feel when suddenly someone we know ceases to exist in this physical form. We go to great lengths to not know death. In most Western cultures death has become a sanitized process which is handled for us by funeral homes. The dead our quietly removed and the body is processed, cleaned up, dressed and placed on display for loved ones to say goodbye to at a viewing. Children are often exempted from even the process of the viewing as we are afraid that they might be traumatized and not understand this thing we call death. We fear the question that may be asked by children as we struggle with our own perspective on death and how we can articulate that to a child. Thus we continue to perpetuate a fear of death borne of our own unawareness of death, our misunderstanding and our fear of death.
How do we prepare for unexpected death? The answer I believe is relatively simple and that is to understand that death is unpredictable, that any one of us could be gone from this form tomorrow and that we love each other as if this was our last moment to express our love. Some of the inevitable questions for all of us when an unexpected death happens are what our last conversation was like, did that person know how much I loved them and how much they meant to me? When we love each other in every moment we fear not that those we love will not know how much we love them if they or we should suddenly leave this form. Love does not fear death, for love understands that death is simply a transforming process, a re-birth if you will to another experience, to another level. Death is not the end of who we are, it is simply a shift in form.
When we fully grasp that our purpose is to love and that we love in all of our forms it is then that we begin to accept death as it comes and not question the whys and the what ifs for we know that our love and the love of the one who no longer shares this physical journey with never dies.
It is in the understanding and acceptance of death that we find peace, for when we fully accept death of this form as it comes then we are better prepared for the loss of others in our life and for the inevitable death of our form. It is with this knowing that any death, particularly sudden death no longer shakes us for we accept and understand that death is not something to be feared, it is not the end of our loved ones, it is not the death of us and that in many ways death is a celebration of a life lived of the next step of our journey and not the grieving of a life ended.
If we truly got it, truly understood death for what it is and what it isn’t we would deliver a commencement speech rather than a eulogy for death would be viewed more like a graduation then as an end of being.
Remember to love as if there is no tomorrow and love as if today is forever and you will always love enough!