I dreamt about death last night. Not my death or the death of anyone I knew. Just about death.
I am at the age that the conversation of death is more and more in the forefront. Obituaries are filled with people of my age dying, so I think about death. Not every day or every minute, but in passing, fleeting thoughts.
We live with death every day. We dine with it, read it, watch it on our TV's. We are surrounded by death in our daily lives and yet we choose not to acknowledge it except when we must.
When we are forced by the death of a loved one (whether the death be human or animal) we use words such as 'loss', 'passed','crossed the rainbow bridge', for the life of us we cannot seem to say a person (or animal) died. I did not lose my parents (that would be careless), they haven't passed from one room to the next, sadly, they died.
The dead are celebrated, venerated and mourned in a variety of ways, from the 'Day of the Dead' when people go to cemeteries with food and gifts to spend the day with their families, both living and dead, to building pyres to cremate the body of a loved one and scatter the ash to the wind.
From our first inhaled breath to our last exhaled breath, we are surrounded by death. The trees that grow feed on it, the flowers we see are there because of it, our world exists because death is a constant. It feeds and grows the community of man.
Death is here just as life is here. They are one in the same. How we acknowledge and understand this 'union' is up to us. Some choose religion as a gateway to understanding life and death. Faith is a very important part of life for many people in the world. It gives those people strength to face the uncertainty that we call life.
I don't believe in ghosts, spirits, angels, heaven, hell, well a lot of things. But I don't say that there isn't a possibility, just like I think death is not the end. No, I don't believe in reincarnation, going up and down the old ladder of life depending on how you lived your previous lives. I do believe in nothing is final. The body may have died but certain aspects continue on. If you are buried in the 'good ol' fashion' way, pine box or canvas wrapping, no chemicals involved, your remains go back to the earth. Trees, grass, flowers all exist because of that nourishment or think of this, every breath you ever breathed is contained within our world. It goes around and around, gets breathed in and out again, year after year, century after century. No, you are no longer a sentient being but you are here.
There are those among us that leave behind the written word, paintings, sculptures, heroic acts, their 'accomplishments' during this thing we call life. Then there are the millions more that just live their lives. They don't have 'accomplishments' to mark their life here on earth other than the fact that they were here, but it is because they were here that the breath of life passes on. The solider that breathed his last in some battlefield has given breath to a child born on a farm somewhere far away from war. My last breath, whenever that may be, will start a child crying as it emerges into this world. That is an amazing thing.
I am surrounded on a daily basis by the beauty of death in the wonder of life. From the flowers I grow in my gardens to the sound of the song birds outside my door, it is truly amazing.
This is not to say death doesn't hurt. That it doesn't break you heart and make you cry when someone you love is no longer there. When you cannot gaze into their eyes or hear their voice. Death creates voids and life fills them. I guess that is why I dreamed about it last night. It is spring and the world is awakening from a winter sleep. Life is all around me, green and glorious, loud and noisy on a quiet dirt road in Vermont. I won't always be here but I have a deep and abiding faith that the world will be because we humans accept death not as ending but just a change. Something we fear and embrace because it is the beginning and ending of all we know.
I am at the age that the conversation of death is more and more in the forefront. Obituaries are filled with people of my age dying, so I think about death. Not every day or every minute, but in passing, fleeting thoughts.
We live with death every day. We dine with it, read it, watch it on our TV's. We are surrounded by death in our daily lives and yet we choose not to acknowledge it except when we must.
When we are forced by the death of a loved one (whether the death be human or animal) we use words such as 'loss', 'passed','crossed the rainbow bridge', for the life of us we cannot seem to say a person (or animal) died. I did not lose my parents (that would be careless), they haven't passed from one room to the next, sadly, they died.
The dead are celebrated, venerated and mourned in a variety of ways, from the 'Day of the Dead' when people go to cemeteries with food and gifts to spend the day with their families, both living and dead, to building pyres to cremate the body of a loved one and scatter the ash to the wind.
From our first inhaled breath to our last exhaled breath, we are surrounded by death. The trees that grow feed on it, the flowers we see are there because of it, our world exists because death is a constant. It feeds and grows the community of man.
Death is here just as life is here. They are one in the same. How we acknowledge and understand this 'union' is up to us. Some choose religion as a gateway to understanding life and death. Faith is a very important part of life for many people in the world. It gives those people strength to face the uncertainty that we call life.
I don't believe in ghosts, spirits, angels, heaven, hell, well a lot of things. But I don't say that there isn't a possibility, just like I think death is not the end. No, I don't believe in reincarnation, going up and down the old ladder of life depending on how you lived your previous lives. I do believe in nothing is final. The body may have died but certain aspects continue on. If you are buried in the 'good ol' fashion' way, pine box or canvas wrapping, no chemicals involved, your remains go back to the earth. Trees, grass, flowers all exist because of that nourishment or think of this, every breath you ever breathed is contained within our world. It goes around and around, gets breathed in and out again, year after year, century after century. No, you are no longer a sentient being but you are here.
There are those among us that leave behind the written word, paintings, sculptures, heroic acts, their 'accomplishments' during this thing we call life. Then there are the millions more that just live their lives. They don't have 'accomplishments' to mark their life here on earth other than the fact that they were here, but it is because they were here that the breath of life passes on. The solider that breathed his last in some battlefield has given breath to a child born on a farm somewhere far away from war. My last breath, whenever that may be, will start a child crying as it emerges into this world. That is an amazing thing.
I am surrounded on a daily basis by the beauty of death in the wonder of life. From the flowers I grow in my gardens to the sound of the song birds outside my door, it is truly amazing.
This is not to say death doesn't hurt. That it doesn't break you heart and make you cry when someone you love is no longer there. When you cannot gaze into their eyes or hear their voice. Death creates voids and life fills them. I guess that is why I dreamed about it last night. It is spring and the world is awakening from a winter sleep. Life is all around me, green and glorious, loud and noisy on a quiet dirt road in Vermont. I won't always be here but I have a deep and abiding faith that the world will be because we humans accept death not as ending but just a change. Something we fear and embrace because it is the beginning and ending of all we know.
