I've never dealt with death. It has always been something that i have heard about but never seen. Like a monster that lives on the outskirts of town by the river. Occasionally it comes up and attacks someone or eats someone, but i have never seen it...not from my house. So that means that I have learned nothing about how to deal with death. Sure, I've listened to other people, but how much can you learn about the way you will experience something, from someone else's experience.
My guess would be that I would be completely undone for a while. Having no idea how long "a while " might be. I think I would be struggling not to be completely consumed by it every second of every day. And then, like a man fighting against the stone on his chest for that next breath...i'd just exhale and take it in wholly. Death scares the shit out of me. Will I be able to handle it? Or will I be one of the people you pretend not to hear talking to themselves as you walk by on the street?
It's the pain that scares me. The weight of it alone will crush some of us. Are you one of the predestined crushees? Am I? To be honest I don't even know why the pain scares me. Why do I feel fear when I think of pain? Pain is crappy and it sucks to deal with, but why does it incite fear? It is as much a part of life as a smile or a cough. I'm not scared of those. Pain is like a red light, it sucks and you are annoyed but you shouldn't fear it. There is no reason. It is part of the ride, and so you accept it. You swallow the fact that in your car you will hit red lights frequently, and move on, right? Right.
What I need to do is find a way to be less scared. Find a way to be okay with the fact that I am going to lose people. I need to find a way to ease death. And nothing eases death more than life.
The more you live, the less you die. The hardest thing for me to deal with would be regrets. So i can ease death by living as fully as I can with everyone I can. Being as present in each moment that goes by as I can possiby be.
Sounds easy right? Yeah, fat chance. But if I could choose one thing for me to work on right now, this would be it. Being present. In the moment...in any given moment. I imagine if I succeeded at this, I would be able to deal with death a bit easier. Pain and Death are not much different. They both are harsh lovers that would trick you into the biggest fall of you life. But embracing the fear of the two seems to be contrary to what would help you get through it. In the end, Pain exists... but i don't have to be afraid of it just because it's there. A lot of things are here, are present, and I'm not scared of them just for being around. To say that Pain is bad or evil is not totally true. The explanation falls short. Pain is. Death is. That hits a lot closer to the mark.
So maybe by embracing life as fully as we can we take some of the sting out of death. Maybe not. But even if death hurts just as bad, wouldn't trying to milk ever moment your given on this big fuzzy blue ball be a good idea? Bed time. I'm going to hold my wife tightly tonight.
1 comment:
Hey Cory,
Well, fear of death,eh? Recently I have taken a bit of a perspective shift, but more on that later, here's how it applies to your comments.
I have experienced the death of a loved one, and I do fear more of that. However, the one thing that totally quells that fear is that whatever hole in my life that a person may leave, it can be filled by God. I know that sounds trite, but think about it: every personality, character trait, physical feature, sense of humor was all invented by God, thought of out of His imagination. It is truly mind boggling. He created unique, autonomous beings, and therefore all the things we love about other people are in God, but increased exponentially.
The thing about pain is, it reminds us we don't belong here. It reminds us of our need for Jesus. When life hurts I try to think, " wow, Jesus went through this kind of pain, even though He didn't have to." It's like a good work out, you want pain, because at the end you can say you gave it your all. It's the same in life, I want some pain so that at the end I can say, "I gave it my all."
Talk to you soon brotha.
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