Sometimes I teeter on the edge of knowing, I mean really knowing, how elusive we are – how fragile and momentary existence in form is. It happened when I leaned in close to my mother as she lay dying. Suddenly death was so simple, so perfectly in tune with everything. She went to death as to a lover. And I saw myself so close behind her, right behind her – rowing my own boat, but still tied to the umbilicus of life itself. And it would be cut soon enough. That’s all. No bells and whistles.
Or when I’m standing in Tadasana, or Mountain posture, in yoga, how everything goes quiet and noisy at once, and none of it matters. All the worry and bother and stress slips off my body and slides through the cracks in the floor. These things are all manufactured during our stay here. They will fall away when it’s time to leave.
When my father was dying, he, too, was impatient to leave, glancing at his watch every few minutes, and then with a sigh asking, why is it taking so long? I wanted to help, to do something for him. I massaged his feet. He said that it hurt too much – his skin was like paper. I brought him jellied consommé – a family favorite when we were sick – with a squeeze of lemon. He said it was too spicy and handed it back. I sang Let Go into the Arms of Love, and asked if he liked it when I sang to him. With a shrug of annoyance, he told me that he couldn’t understand the words. He kicked us out – had the three of us children walk my ailing mother around the house – so that he could leave without all the fuss around him. It didn’t work, not then. But he did get his wish – alone in his room, he slumped his final breath out, as I surreptitiously watched in the mirror beside his bed, which I could see through the window. It’s private, this dying, it seems. No one can help. After days of sitting with my mother, she left once we had all stepped out for a quick nap. As they withdraw from this life, all the things we do to comfort, to soothe, to heal become irrelevant. We are left, as the living, with ourselves, our emotions, our ideas, our own breath in our chests.
When my brother died, I was struck by the sense that we were left to wait, that he had gone back to the something where we all belonged – from where we came and would all return soon enough. I felt, you could say, left behind. Trust me, I’m not talking about heaven, or other bodies… it’s a simpler, more open sense than that. As if we return to a sort of one-being-ness. Or no-being-ness. I wrote at the time, that we had been left on the ground. By that I meant I was aware of the density of being embodied, the weight of it, the restriction of it.
Will I rage into the dying of the light? Will all these observations seem ridiculous as I struggle for breath? I doubt it. Of course, I have my little fantasy of coughing delicately into a hankie, touching the sweet faces of those around me, and closing my eyes with the final long exhale. And then hovering for a few days to witness a rollicking good party by my river where everyone exchanges colourful tales and dances all night long, my ashes mixed with gunpowder and set off in a fireworks display.
In those moments when I can see the diaphanous nature of life here, it’s just fun. It is a play, a leela, as it is called in Sanskrit. So that when I see via Facebook that many of my friends around the world have penetrated the membrane that separates life from whatever is next, I don’t feel sad. When I first heard Osho suggest that everything should be celebrated, including life once it has ended, I thought it a bit of a conceit. I would try to imagine that I could celebrate loss, but it didn’t really work. I’d distract myself with all the dancing and singing that went on when someone “left the body” in the commune or the ashram. 
But now, I get it. Celebration simply means to be totally here in the moment, even when it sucks. So, I might miss that person, or feel sad that I won’t get to have a cup of coffee with them again, but I’m not sad for them. They probably feel sad for us, the ones left behind, that still have to struggle through the aches and pains of having a body, and who have to keep reminding themselves just to be here.
This is very moving and light. Thank you, Deepam. I am just now going through great loss myself and found consolation in your words.
I totally agree. When someone dies, we grieve our own loss, but the death itself is cause for celebration. In my family, we always have a party – we eat, drink, play card games and laugh. A lot. Not everybody gets it. When my grandfather died, we had the church service and the sober reception for his widow (second wife, not my grandmother), and then didn’t tell her about the party because she always thought we were inappropriate and disrespectful. When my uncle died we had the party at his favourite Chinese restaurant. I think the waiter thought we were insane.
It’s the life we celebrate, I think. Especially one well-lived…
Thank you for that, Bieke. I’m glad some good comes of these musings.
It is the mystery that gets us, I think: that transition from being to not-being (viewed from here) — the opposite of our birth, which is coming from the nowhere into the here. The mystery is: which is real?
That’s wonderful! I just read this quote by George Carlin today : The most unfair thing about life is the way it ends. I mean, life is tough. It takes up a lot of your time. What do you get at the end of it? A death. What’s that, a bonus?
I think the life cycle is all backwards. You should die first, get it out of the way. Then you live in an old age home. You get kicked out when you’re too young, you get a gold watch, then you go to work.
You work forty years until you’re young enough to enjoy your retirement. You do drugs, alcohol, you party, you get ready for high school. You go to grade school, you become a kid, you play. You have no responsibilities, you become a little baby, you go back into the womb, you spend your last nine months floating…and you finish off as an orgasm.
Deepam, I struggle with the idea that the end credits are approaching too fast. I despair at the failing of my own skin with each passing day. I will fight to the very end because I don’t want to miss anything. I am neither religious nor particularily spiritual and I don’t suppose I ever will be but I do envy them their beliefs.
Sometimes, I feel the same as you, that I am on the edge of knowing but each time the answer gets too close, I shy away.
The grieving is a selfish thing, more about what I am lossing when a friend or loved one passes or the grief for the ones left behind and what they lose. But I do indulge myself in it none-the-less. It clenses, at least I feel it does.
Beautiful and yet hauntingly terrifying post. I really like your idea of the fireworks, go out with a bang.
As for me, to paraphrase Dylan Thomas,
I will not go gentle into that good night,
Old age should burn and rave at close of day;
Rage, rage against the dying of the light.
I held vigil next to my mother-in-law because I knew she would not want to be alone. Comatose and unhooked from life support, she lingered for days. Family came and went. I stayed nearly all the time. Finally, on a quiet morning when the sun filtered into her private hospital room, while my daughter and I rubbed her feet and spoke in soft voices, she passed. One moment deep ragged breaths. The next, none.
And I knew she was gone before I realized what had happened because I felt her move through me. Indescribable, actually, that sensation of “other” passing through me on her way to … where? It was her giving back a touch on her way to the next stage, perhaps. Her energy leaving her worn body for another place. One last moment with us.
It was a moment that will stay with me until it is my turn. I was so honoured to be there for her and never so sure that there is something beyond our ken. At least, in this life.