The Death Card

Death is all around me today. I woke last night at 3:45 in the morning, fear of my own "nothingness" swallowing me up in the darkness. I can remember the exact moment that it dawned on me that I would die some day. My mother tried to pacify me but I was inconsolable as I imagined the void - it was terrifying. I was 7 years old and I had just learned that a family friend had died.

During the day, my belief in an afterlife calms me. As I have gotten older my fears have diminished. But sometimes, it sneaks up on me and I am as socked in the gut with terror as a little girl, realizing that some day, her life will be over. Gone.

Tonight I made soup for a woman who is waiting for her husband to die. I called over to see when I could deliver it and learned that he had died earlier this morning. In three days I'm going to a friend's memorial, she was around my age. This morning I spoke with a dear friend about her mother's passing - she died last week on my mother's birthday - life and death.

The conversation with my friend was very special - it is a privilege to me to hear somebody's "death story." Similar to a birth story, it is always personal and highly individual. The times I have been around death have also been times when I've felt the most alive and grateful. There is a feeling of being completely out of the "self" (i.e. ego) and being more in the high self or soul body. I'm not sure what awaits me after death, so I will devote more effort to be conscious and present in this life. To continue to open my heart and love all (yes, I mean ALL) the beautiful people in my life.

ps - the picture above is a Day of the Dead altar that Andy and I created in November. As I see the faces of my grandparents and my father I feel my heart burst with longing and love and joy and sadness - all at once. And I know that there love lives on in me.