"Today you are alive and no one is beside you, but if tomorrow you were to die, many would come to see you. Today you are alive and no one will give you a hug, but if tomorrow you were to die, no one would want to let you go. Today you are alive and no one will give you a rose, but if tomorrow you were to die, they would send you bouquets and wreaths of flowers. Today no one pays attention to you but when you die you will be popular for a full day. They will post pictures of you on social media saying how much they love you, how special you are to them, and how they can't live without you. Today you are alive and they make you cry, but if you were to die tomorrow everyone would cry for you..."
This is one of my favorite short poems. There have been no truer words said. Yesterday night I was talking to a dear friend of mine who can see the energy of spirits forming their image. I had sent her a picture and she said that there was one hiding behind my door. I was not surprised since in my years of spiritual practice I have come to sense many of them. She said that this particular one almost looked like Death. I said to her: ohh great!!! they are finally taking me!!! I am done with whatever my purpose of being stuck in a human body is. It will finally be over and I am finally going home! Happy Dance!!!
I decided to post that experience on Facebook, there was obviously a reason for it because to tell you the truth I already know how humans react to the idea of death. It was not quite clear to me why that inspiration had come, until this morning. I woke up to the song Over the Rainbow playing on my phone, I usually fall asleep to healing music every night and the loop of it continues until I wake up. It has never been so that this song plays on the loop I have set up, but it did... This song used to give me goosebumps because the person who wrote it, wrote thinking about heaven. They were describing how home (heaven) feels, even though they didn't really say that out loud. Most people know though, it is a popular song played when someone passes. Anyhow, I went to check Facebook and sure enough, humans were commenting...
One of them had posted the emoji that is rolling their eyes, they know I am not afraid of death and that I am happy that this physical body I am in is not eternal. But I know they don't like the idea of it and I know that they don't like to be reminded. Then there was a friend of mine who is like a little sister to me, I told her to make sure to call me because I was leaving soon, she said I was being crazy... Someone else was wondering what was going on... And then there was one that was probably the most irrational one, it was someone who only interacts with me on Facebook. I don't speak to this person outside of my Facebook posts but for some reason they said they did not want to say goodbye to me yet. That one started to irritate me a little because the physical absence of my body would really have absolutely no impact in their life, they don't even know who I really am, even though they think they know because they know one of my biological parents, but neither of my biological parents know who I am.
I stepped back from all that, grounded myself because feeling negative emotions means I am allowing my human self to take over too much, and then I smiled and laughed. Humans are so afraid of something they don't really know about. I was immediately reminded of a meeting I had last Friday where we all mentioned that with technology we have created this idea that our human bodies have to live forever, and if they don't then we feel this extreme pain. It used to be that people died a lot more than they do now; I say a lot more because there were no treatments for a lot of diseases that would have extremely shorten a person's life but know there are. Now, we are used to going to the doctor and getting a pill, a treatment, something to make that illness not progress as quickly. We want people to live, we want to save them. It can be seen as a noble idea but more often than not, it is a selfish one.
I have gotten into arguments for saying that, but I know I am not the only one who thinks that way. I have been lucky enough to meet people in the past few months who see it for what it is. A friend of mine and I were chatting the other day and she was explaining that her grandmother keeps going through surgeries she does not want only because she wants to make her children happy. Of course, none of her children see that she is suffering and she is ready to go, they just keep pushing her to keep living. I told her that I could not find one person who could give me a logical explanation why someone should keep living when they are in pain, the only reasons they could give me was their own selfish ones. The person should live because there are many people who would miss them. What about the people who still need them? What about how their family will feel? They are not thinking about anyone but themselves when they are thinking they want to die. It was all emotional responses, I said to her. Her answer was that someone should live because there are things they still want to do while in physical form. I said yes! Someone should live because they want to continue to live, not because of what anyone else wants.
It is true, in the end the dead person is no longer suffering. The dead person is free and the only ones who suffer are the ones who remain alive. I wondered why this phenomenon happens because to tell you the truth most of the people who cry and suffer for the dead person did not even spend enough time with that person to feel that way. Their physical presence was more than likely not something they experienced on a daily basis and therefore the idea that you would miss them to me seems irrational. I now bring you back to the beginning of this post... the best reason I can come up with and the one that fits perfectly is REGRET.
Regret is one of the things that humans carry with them on a daily basis. We are all always thinking that we have tomorrow to make decisions, that we have tomorrow to change something, we have tomorrow to talk to someone, we have tomorrow to spend time... And then when that tomorrow takes that someone or something away, we feel sad because we are hit with the reality that we don't really have that much time. It is funny because every time someone dies, that is the mood of the funeral or memorial but then the very moment the funeral or memorial is over we go back to the same way of thinking. It is why I don't like them. I was taken to one last year and every one of the persons who knew the diseased would say something great about her and then would add how life is short and it should be enjoyed. How we should cherish those who are still here with us and be grateful... I know that the majority of them went on after that to live just the same, until someone else dies at which point they will all say the same things.
Isn't it amazing though? Humans fear death because they fear loss, but they live their lives as if they will never lose anything or anyone. They keep away from the people they love and who love them because they think they will all have tomorrow to enjoy it with them. They stick around toxic people because they think they will have enough time to change their lives and enjoy it later without them. They put themselves in situations that will require an extreme amount of effort only because they think that they will have time to enjoy themselves later. They overwork themselves because they think they have time to enjoy the fruits of their labor later. They get careers in fields they don't want because of the same thing... And then eventually it catches on to them that they didn't really have enough time. Illness kicks in, death comes to visit, and suddenly it feels like all of it was time wasted. Regret sets in and pain usually follows. But God forbids we actually acknowledge every day that our physical lives are short and we actually take the time to let those we love that we love them. Take the time to spend it with them, to enjoy them... We won't, we won't because even though we know we have short lives and that they could end at any point, we still deceive ourselves into thinking that we do have time. That those we love will wake up tomorrow and we will have another opportunity, so it is ok to sit and think about doing that today without actually doing it...
We can get rid of the people who don't fill our lives another day, today is ok to answer them out of respect and out of courtesy. It is ok to do the things we don't like today because tomorrow is another day and we will definitely have an opportunity to change things. The truth is that we are not even promised the next second of life, so we should take the opportunity now.
Why am I not afraid of death? Because I have taken the time to let those I love that I love them. I have ensure that I did everything I could to spend the time with the ones I love. I know I have done everything in my power to be there and to do the things that bring me joy. Even though some of them have not wanted to be there or spent time, I made myself available because that is all I could do. I have enjoyed every moment I have lived, even the bad ones because I have learned from them. I have fallen many times but I learned, got up and kept going. I left the bad taste of it behind and took with me the lesson which in turn helped me grow and do things better as I continued. So, when the time comes I will go happily... I will go happily because I lived the way I wanted.
