The very best thing about death

There are many different directions I could take this article, and many of them would be true.  But to be faithful to the vision given to me, I must limit my focus to one.

The very best thing about death is the life 
that emanates out of the imagination of it.

When I go to funerals, I don’t hear people saying, “life’s not precious.”  To a person, I hear people awestruck in many manifestations of wonder for the certainty of mortality.  Death brings us to attention.  Being something we cannot resolve, there’s benefit in resolving to accept it.  Once we’re there, there is a cosmos of blessing to be had, because our life purpose is activated.

The end of a person’s life is the most incomprehensible thought, and there’s nothing like it to motivate the right kind of action.  “I must be here for something!” becomes the soul’s catchcry.

One thing Sarah and I discovered when we were losing Nathanael—through an anonymous friend, actually—is there was life in making every effort to make the very most of every moment we were given to have him, there, alive, in the womb, with us.

It’s like the title of a recent article I saw but hadn’t read (didn’t need to): “I’m thankful to cancer for one reason – we did so much living while my husband was dying.”

It wasn’t until my first marriage failed and my father had had a serious and debilitating surgery that both of us—brought to our knees by the circumstances of our lives—were able to embrace each other in a manly hug.

When life breaks us, those feelings of loss connect us to a deeper empathy and intimacy.

Again, in the specific context of funerals, I’ve so often seen the real person emerge, even momentarily, because they were ravaged by grief.  Masks and facades fall and smash in the brittle oblivion of irrelevance in the sight of loss.  Only those who are truly shells of humanity won’t bow to the ‘weakness’ that reveals authenticity.

One of the best gifts we can give ourselves is to live out of the frame of the imminence of death.  We take others we love and care for must less for granted.  We watch what we say and do and are more compassionate toward others.  We recognise the immortal wisdom of reconciling our restorable relationships.  We don’t delay important things.  We stop doing things that really don’t matter.  We tell people that we love them.  We say our yeses and no’s with much more sincerity than ever before.  We imagine that all we possess will soon pass into other hands, so we covet less, and we become more generous.  We begin to allow ourselves the freedom of wonder about things we cannot explain, like questions science and philosophy cannot yet answer.  True wisdom and understanding begins to take hold in our lives.

Another thing, if we can get over our fear of death and dying there literally is nothing else left to fear in life.  Think about it.  If the fear of ceasing to exist in this physical realm is stopped, we’re free to live the days that we have left, and perhaps we afford ourselves time to reflect over precious memories.

We cannot shake the reality that we’re only here for a certain length of time, and it’s our opportunity to make the most of every moment of every day.  Besides, if we can just imagine what’s eternally in the divine eye—an unconditional love beyond human comprehension—we might just believe in the reality of ‘heaven’ that so many who say ‘rest in peace’ believe in.

The very best thing about death is what it 
causes us to do when thought of death is close.

When we carry about ourselves the concept of our death, it literally is the spark in the eye for appreciating the moments of life that we do have.