It's OK

Life literally hangs by a breath.

Breathe in.

After exhaling, consider the possibility that you might not be able to inhale again.

When breath no longer enters your body,

then your life span has ended, and you will die.

Say to yourself, "This life is fragile and completely dependent on my breath."

From Being with Dying:

Cultivating Compassion and Fearlessness in the Presence of Death

by Joan Halifax

Well, she has worked very hard this past week, and we now have her Celebration of Life ceremony written. (See my previous post: Enjoy Your Journey.) She considers this her opportunity to get in the last word. I love her sense of humor, and I am deeply honored to have been invited into the intimate spaces of her heart and mind. I, too, feel a sense of satisfaction with our co-creation. Now we wait, knowing that for each of us life literally hangs by a breath.

Since I have been visiting in her home with her, I now ask for dog biscuits at the drive-in window at the credit union. These treats are for her loyal four-legged friend. I am welcomed with a bark and an immediate expectancy of a treat. I think she welcomes me that way, too…. 

Baby boomers are now approaching end-of-life, and, as this bulge in human history we have the opportunity to shape the culture we were born into. Is it possible we can cultivate compassion and fearlessness in the presence of death? Perhaps it is not only possible, but also our destiny and our most sacred opportunity. 

Conscious dying is the phrase most commonly used today. An essential element in conscious dying is learning to consciously live, and the earlier the better, but it is never too late to learn the truth that it's OK.

You can listen online to the complete Death A 5-Part Series on Wisconsin Public Radio. Here is an excerpt from part three, Death-The Last Moment:

The hospice doctors, nurses, and social workers asked him if he was afraid of death. He always said no; he was not afraid of death. It occurred to me that was not the right question.

I asked him, "Are you afraid of death?"

"No," he responded. 

"Are you afraid of dying?" I asked. 

"Yes," he whispered. 

"What are you afraid of?" I continued.

"The unknown… the pain," he stammered. 

Steven Spiro, Buddhist chaplain and advocate of conscious dying, shares information on conscious dying and encourages us to imagine our own death in detail: where would you like to die; who would you want with you; who don't you want to be there. I would add the phrase from Imagine Healing: Although it won't happen exactly as you imagine it....

Spiro suggests we can make peace and practice conscious dying with the help of the phrases from Four Things That Matter Most: A Book About Living, by Ira Byrock, M.D. 

"Please forgive me."

"I forgive you."

"Thank you."

"I love you."

Spiro wisely adds a fifth: "It's OK." 

I breathe in and I think of the unknown facing me and all those I love. I breathe out and I think of the unknown facing her and all those she loves.

It's OK. I have another serving of dog biscuits ready....

Enjoy Your Journey

The ringing of the doorbell was immediately greeted by fierce barking from inside the house. My visit was with a woman at home with hospice care. Waiting patiently my mind gently ran through options ranging from a forgotten appointment time to a crisis that had taken her from her home. Then I heard a distant voice telling me to come on in. 
 

In spite of her frail body, I was greeted with warm and active eyes. Her very vocal companion let me know I best be coming as a friend….

The subject of life after death seemed to naturally weave itself into our sharing. The Hawk Visit is one story that often has relevance when we are musing about the after life. I mentioned that our book club is reading Proof of Heaven: A Neurosurgeon's Journey into the Afterlife, by Eben Alexander.

I also shared two of my favorite quotations from Roadside Assistance for the Spiritual Traveler, by my friend Rabbi Rami Shapiro.

(November/December 2008)

What happens when I die?

Where does an ice cube go in a tub of warm water? You are the cube, God is the water. For a while you seem separate from the water, but eventually you melt – you die – and discover that you, too, are water. Have fun being a cube; just don’t forget that all cubes are water, and everything is God.

(January/February 2007)

Imagine that the universe is a rope and you, your mom, and all things are knots in that rope. Each knot is unique, and all knots are the rope. When we die our knot unties, but the rope that is our essence remains unchanged: we become what we already are.

Life after death is the same as life before death: the rope knotting and unknotting. The extent to which you identify with a knot is the extent to which you grieve over its untying. The extent to which you realize that the knot is the rope is the extent you can move through your grief into a sense of fearless calm.

For me, the rope is God, the source and substance of all reality. When your mom dies she relaxes into her true nature, and realizes who she always was and is: God. I believe this realization comes at death regardless of who we are or how we life.

She tires easily, so our precious time together for the day was coming to an end when she said, "It would be so much easier if I could trust that this dying leads to a good thing." 

I encouraged her to trust that our leaving our bodies is natural and safe by looking at nature. Every autumn the trees in Michigan let go of their leaves (I had keyed in lives) without fear of the future. Each spring new life breaks forth. I reminded her that everything is energy and the first law of physics is that energy can be neither created nor destroyed.

Later that same day, a friend came for dinner. After dinner she read to me a section of Choices: Taking Control of Your Life and Making it Matter, by Melody Beattie. My friend had randomly opened to this section earlier that morning, about the same time of my home visit:

The famous "Death and Dying" lady lay on the hospital bed in her living room. She couldn't get up. A series of strokes—19 or more—had left her severely handicapped. Paralyzed on one side. It was morning. She was thirsty. Elisabeth Kübler-Ross said a quick prayer. "God, please send someone. A cup of tea would be so nice."

(Melody describes how she came to be there that day, how she helped Elisabeth dress, and then made her a cup of tea.)

Elisabeth looked at me. "What do you want to ask me?"

Now it was my turn to clear my throat. "Do you really believe in life after death? Are you afraid of death, at least a little bit?" I asked. 

Elisabeth laughed. "Didn't you read my book, dear?" she said. "It's not about believing. I know there's life after death. Dying is the easy part. It's life that's hard."

I leaned over and whispered in her ear, "Thank you. And have a safe trip home."

Retreat Review

Without sharing the others personal details, it is my hope through this blog post you will be able to have a sense of the depth of experience from the week-long retreat at Camp Geneva, in Holland. 

Right there on the shores of Lake Michigan, every season was present—including sun and warmth and bitter wind and rain and snow! Every season of our innermost being was present, too. As magnificent as the physical setting was, the inner radiance was truly most beyond words. 

The focus of the first two days was on conscious aging. We heard that the human life can be summed up this way: "Aging is from diapers to diapers. We start out needing help eating and walking, and we end up needing help eating and walking. Even with the best of planning, you have no control."

Although our personal lives are filled with history, our inner being remains untouched by the ravages of past days and decades, allowing love to shine forth through those cracks and crevices. Sitting in meditation, you remember who you really are. You feel your heart open to divine love. Day after day we were each giving respect to and honoring our true essence. We had the opportunity to create our soul collage. It was truly a memorable experience.

We led one another in a trust walk, and we played a round of Jenga. The game has 54 blocks. The goal is to remove one block at a time and stack it on top. In the official game, the last player to stack a block on top without making the tower fall is the winner. The suspense builds and the tower keeps getting taller. Our instructions were to notice when our body would contract, and to remember to relax and truly enjoy the play. 

My past work as a doula (childbirth coach) came in very handy as one of our group said she had always been called a Nervous Nelly. So she could relax and have fun, I kept reminding her to breathe and kept saying, "It is only a game. At some point it all falls down and we say yeah." I had such fun with my two partners, Clare and Cathy!

If you let go a little, you will have a little peace.

If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace.

If you let go completely, you will have complete peace and freedom.

~ Ajahn Chah