Tuesday, March 09, 2010

Taking a chance on our odds, or feeling lucky?

How strange it is to think people, even being miles apart, will feel and experience certain things the same way as if they were close. At some point we all have to face the fact we are not immortal. We all know this, but most of us don’t really accept it, nor do we prepare for it.

My meditation teacher often says we are here to prepare our death, and we should use our time here to do so. Most people react to this statement. I tend to agree with him, on this one. Some people believe in some type of after life, some in reincarnation, some in paradise, some in nothing, but no matter what our beliefs are, we will die. Our heart will stop to beat, our brain waves as well. We will physically die. Where and if we go somewhere else after is in a way irrelevant. We should make the best of the time we have now.

While talking with Hubby’s uncle over the weekend I said, for one, I tried to live each day to the fullest, almost as if it was my last. I don’t think of this every moment, but I do often; what if this was the last time I do …. I guess I’ve learned, watching my parents, who used to kiss before one would leave, to the point it would make me gag at times (especially as a teen), to never leave home without kissing my husband. If something was to happen to one of us, our last thought of our last moment together would be that kiss. Morbid? Maybe.

I try to live my life without having too many regrets. I do my best, and try not to hurt people. I don’t want to be on my deathbed thinking of all the things I should have done or said. I want to go in peace…

Hubby’s uncle talked about a relative who was recently placed in an “old folks home” and how it hit him hard while he was visiting this old man, how almost everyone in there was just sitting there awaiting death, staring blindly at the wall, empty of desires, dreams or simply life. We spend time planning for our vacations, our time off, and some of us even plan the time they will retire. We put money aside, and hope to be able to be comfortable and do those things we never had the time to do. What makes us think we will have the time or the energy or even the will to do them then? Why is it most of us don’t prepare ourselves to the eventuality that death is coming? Why do we hold on to grudges, or simply stop talking to so and so, because of something they did or didn’t do on such occasion? Why do we do this?

Before my mother-in-law passed I remember telling her she should make peace with people she loved before she died, and this even if she had one month or six or even a year ahead of her, just make peace so that she could go in peace. She did with me, and I’m very thankful for that. I wanted peace between us, and I’m happy we became friends before she did pass. Not everybody has this chance, so why not put the odds in our favour and act as if we were close to the end?

This is one thing I think we should not procrastinate too much about… Call it experience, life lesson, or what ever, one thing I do know, with or without another chance at this, I’m living my life the way I intend and I’d say it’s pretty full, even if there are days when I feel and act like a beached whale just waiting for something… something bigger than me who can actually move me in some way…

4 comments:

lizgwiz said...

We should prepare more for death, in a positive way, as we approach it more surely, and we should always live life to the fullest. I agree.

There's a line in the play I'm rehearsing, spoken by a character who has cancer, "I want to have a relationship with death--that's important. But I don't want to have a relationship with a disease."

tNb said...

A very thought-provoking post ... I try very hard to be aware of how I choose to spend the time I have and to be thankful for every day. Sometimes it's easy to slip into old habits, this post gave me a gentle nudge - thank you!

CiCi said...

Very nice writing. I always like blogs that share their experience and cause me to think. I like the part about your mother-in-law and you making peace. Life and death are only the beginning and the ending on this planet. What we learn and how we use what we learn while we are here is what happens between the birth and death. I so agree about making the best of the time we do have here.

Robert the Skeptic said...

To me the fact that life is finite, in itself, makes it more precious. Far more so than an afterlife that, some believe, will go on for eternity. Life is about placing value on our life and the lives of others we hold dear... even on the lives of people who are unknown to us.

I feel sorry for the people who devote their lives to amassing piles of stuff or money. How pointless a life lived is such shallow pursuit.

Yours was a very profound post today, thank you.