By now you probably know someone, or know someone who knows someone who is positive or has died from the virus. And even if you don’t, you’ve seen the virtual funerals, body bags, refrigerator truck morgues, plain wooden caskets and mass graves on the news.
As a society, we are separated from the process of death. Most of us don’t hunt or butcher our own meat. The meat we eat comes to us cleaned, cut and wrapped in clear plastic cellophane.
We don’t prepare the bodies of our loved ones when they die. We leave that to the morticians, funeral homes and crematoriums. When our pets are sick we have the vet “put them down.” It may save them pain, but it also saves us from witnessing the stages of dying.
It’s heartbreaking when someone we know dies. It is sobering. It brings up every fear and assumption about death, and it causes us to think about our own death one day, if we let it.
In the last three weeks I’ve learned of the passing of about ten friends, colleagues, and relatives of people I know. One in particular hit me hard. Dr. Julie Butler, our vet. I was up all night, sadness threatening to engulf me in a gaping hole of despair.
But instead of bottling it under a sheath of platitudes (“Sorry for your loss; she’s in a better place”), I decided to let myself feel the dimensions of my grief. Then, to halt the momentum of those downward feelings, I called a mutual friend and we talked about all of the wonderful memories we had about her.
For 17 years, when my daughter and I took our beloved cat for a check-up, he’d hiss and scream. She’d just hold him by the scruff of the neck and calmly say, “Be nice now, you’re all right.” I admired her and her husband for running an animal hospital in Harlem for so many years. The village relied on their dedication to our community, and valued their respect and caring for our little beasties. Dr. Julie always had a young person working with her, so keen was her commitment to passing on her knowledge and experience. My friend noted the no-nonsense way she kept folk in check, and her deep love for and pride in her children.
But I also knew that the anguish I felt for Dr. Julie was rooted in my fears about my own death. So I took out a big post-it sheet, adhered it to the wall, and did a process of mental and soul clearing.
A Clearing Process
Try this. On the top of the paper I wrote “What I Think About Death Is…” Then, in different colored pens, I wrote down all of my beliefs about death. Words popped into my mind in no particular order:
Scary, sacred rituals, final, release, at peace, unknown, cemeteries, equalizer, funeral parlors, confusion, sadness, sobbing, cremation, everything said that needs to be said, darkness, heaven and hell, stop counting birthdays and LIVE, morbid, alone, music and singing, hospital tubes and machines, earth is a school house, elevate, violence, sunset, obituaries, conscious transition, karma, flowers, embalming, decay, maggots, immortal, no loose ends, debts paid, expenses covered, graduation of the life wave, wakes and repasts, one with all Being, so grateful, those who have gone on before, those living, and those yet to be born.
We all have many divergent beliefs about death. That dichotomy is perfectly natural and utterly human. Getting them up and out on paper gives us the power that comes from facing ourselves honestly and courageously. We can examine the ones we no longer believe, release them, and invite in more edifying thoughts.
The Vital Questions
Then we can go on to answer the practical questions that will help us finish this life strong. If you have not already, ask yourself:
- Have I prepared my affairs with a will, a living will and health directive so that my wishes are clear?
- Are my financial affairs in order so that they are not a burden on the ones I leave behind?
- Have I excised the clutter in my home so that my essential belongings may be easily bequeathed to those I love?
- Have I said all that needs to be said to the people who matter to me?
- Do I have a body of work that might form some kind of legacy for my family or the world?
- Am I right in my soul with whatever is my concept of the Divine?
To paraphrase the philosopher Rainer Maria Rilke:
“Let my joyfully streaming face make me more radiant; let my hidden weeping arise and blossom. Let me not squander the hours of pain.”
