The Only Things You Can Count on For Sure...Death and Taxes

Having recently created a few dozen silk flower arrangements from my 91+ y.o. mother to "decorate the graves" in a several-generations-old tradition of purposefully visiting all cemeteries where loved ones "rest," I have had a few thoughts about death that haunt me as vigilantly as do the threats from my beloved grandmother who, when I was small, used to tease that she would haunt me without her dentures in when I misbehaved. One such thought comes with a blend of admiration, gratitude, and confusion when I ponder the lives expended to ensure the freedoms I've had my whole life. Arlington Cemetery has found me bawling all four times I've visited and likely will again the next trip to D.C. Death is a steep price to pay at any age though to me it seems all the more expensive when the one dying is young and otherwise healthy. While I appreciate these sacrifices, I'm still pondering how we do death in western culture--or maybe any culture, really.

Why are we so afraid of an event that happens regularly--daily, second by second? A client recently reiterated the kinds of thoughts about death that bring genuine wailing--"I will miss my people," "I'm afraid of what I don't know," "I finally have a life I love and now have limited time to really live it." Loving this person as I do, I felt her wresting at my core and fought to stay present with her as she determined the labels of her own struggles. The path she would choose to walk through these struggles needed to settle her fears in a way that would be totally good enough for her given her values and beliefs. This journey is no joke--it's painful, scary, and without definitive boundaries or guideposts much of the time. Still, we all get to take this journey--and not just once for most of us. I lost count a couple of decades ago when it comes to how many people I've trekked alongside as they forged the path to their own understandings of the purpose of life, of death, and all that lies within both. Each person has developed their own commitments to beliefs and how they would live these beliefs. What a remarkable process in which to participate with others...so much to learn! And still, there are many themes that cross all journeys. Within these journeys there are conclusions that seem to be more likely to make for joy while other conclusions tend to result in marked fear and anxiety, and still others that lead people to use words like meaningless, hollow, and disconnected.

So, what makes us choose what we do when it comes to understanding death, and in relation to it, life? It seems to me this has to do with all the stuff we've crammed or had crammed in our Life Events Backpacks--especially the stuff that is in there that we don't want to examine and/or are afraid to discard. When I remember the backpack we all carry, I'm less confused as to why we don't each choose values and beliefs that are more likely to bring joy. It would seem sensical, but it's HARD!

Side story that relates: I was hiking with a friend I didn't know terrible well (yet), and I smelled what seemed initially to me to be a foul rotting smell. I wasn't sure from whence it came, so I hiked on keeping my descriptors to myself. She being of the plant-loving sort announced shortly after that she was smelling some flowering plant or other that was beautiful and that she could not wait to see it. Shortly after, she found it, pointed it out, and steeped herself in the smell of it. Turns out, it was the stench I had been smelling all along. Now that it was a beautiful plant and flower, it just didn't stink anymore. What do you know? Just knowing it was not rotting flesh changed the way I smelled the scent. And my friend's excitement/curiosity about the plant raised my own excitement and curiosity. What we know/choose to believe has a lot to do with our experiences. We write our own stories over the top of our experiences and therefore have great power and responsibility for our feelings.

I get that death and dying might encompass a good bit more meaningful to most of us than hiking and it's flora and fauna. Still, what if we each made some decisions about life, death and what comes after that greater joy and value-filled living?

I'm sure enjoying watching this beautifully-souled client make these adjustments to her way of smelling death. Such joy is stemming from knowing her sadness is also about how well she has learned to love and be loved. Her fears are paired with hope when she thinks about what she hopes death to be. Her pressure to live now has shifted to purposeful and joy-filled value-based living every moment as she holds on to her determination that she is here to grow into a woman of character while she lives. Not everyone does this. I've also watched utter despair and loss of hope as a client pondered her beliefs regarding hell for anyone imperfect (which I'll admit made me squirm in all my imperfect juices) and settle into acceptance of this reality of hers with a resignation to her own as-is enoughness. Then there is another client who dismantled a great deal of his former beliefs to settle on death as nothingness that was preferable to him over the guilt, shame, and fear he hosted given his life-time of mistakes and disappointments. Different people--different paths. There's relief at a minimum and down-right joy at a maximum when there is congruence and peace about the chapter the human has written and the life one then chooses to live.

I'm holding the challenge that I get to (must) decide for myself since I know no one who knows what life and death are all about. I am choosing something totally good enough for me and hope you choose something totally good enough for you that you might at least have peace about life and death and maybe have great joy when you face this certainty. (Sorry, Mother, but I won't be decorating graves each memorial day when you are not here to do it. It is totally good enough to me to feel the overwhelming gratitude I have for all those who were here before me and made my life possible and the world a bit better because they lived.)