Watching death can feel like drowning. You feel helpless, as if the current is pulling you under water, and the harder you swim, the more you sink. It’s like that with death. You have absolutely no control over what is happening, and the more you try to deny the outcome of the dying, the more you lose yourself.
My mother looked at me while laying in the Hospice bed and said, “I need to fix my hair to go to school.” She had a hallucinatory comb in her hand combing through long hair that she had when she was a girl. “I need to catch the bus for school, so I need to fix my hair.” Her eyes appeared seventy years younger, looking at me with half amusement and half pleading as she spoke. As a teacher, it was a pleasant moment that I had with her, assuring her that her hair looked pretty and that she was indeed ready for school. “I need to get my books,” she said and then she laid her head back on a pillow staring up at me with a childish grin. It showed me for a moment that our age is really dictated by our mind. We can be youthful in our thoughts. My mom always said to me, “The most difficult thing about getting older is that my body has changed and aged, but my mind still has thoughts that I had when I was a teenager or in my twenties.” Don’t lose the gift of youth or the wisdom of aging.
I did not try to hang onto her, so I did not drown. I knew that she was never mine to keep and I had to let her go. Her death was not within my influence of control. This is how I have handled her death for the past three months, knowing that all I can control now is my response to her dying. I have not denied my emotions, suppressing them deep down. Instead, when I need to cry, I cry. When I need to be in disbelief, I am present with that emotion. If anger approaches me and wants to challenge my thoughts, I sit with it. When anxiety and depression come to play, I am there to welcome them both. My control is not denying myself the beauty of grieving for someone I loved so dearly. Why should I try to stop something that is truly beautiful. I was fortunate enough to be loved by a mother that upon her death has left me with an emptiness, a void, right in the middle of my chest that sometimes feels hollow, like no air or blood is entering it. I welcome the pain. To welcome suffering is a present that we unwrap slowly.
While grieving, I have learned more than ever that I have a life to live. My mother’s death has made me more alive than ever. I feel and see the world, my world, in a new way. It has given me a clarity that I did not have just a few months ago. The importance of simply waking up and breathing is more significant than ever. For years, I have tried to live mindfully, in the moment, enjoying the simple pleasures before me. I have been mindful of love and relationships, which are not always simple, but complex and wonderful. It has launched me into wanting, craving change, and having the energy to go and explore what that might mean for me. Her death has made me look even deeper into my wife’s eyes and make sure that we are not wasting our moments together. I have started to realize that the distractions of life, those things that are insignificant but take over our lives at times, are no longer welcomed in my circle. Death has brought me more life, an urgency to live it. I owe that to myself. I owe it to my wife, and I owe it to the woman who brought me into this magnificent, cruel, and majestic world. A world where I have redefined my purpose several times and am currently on the cliff, looking down at the cool blue waters of existence and ready to jump.
I have been on a journey of self-discovery and self-awareness, and that journey will never reach an end. It is a path where I will be walking continually, even after I have died. For I believe, after what I just witnessed, that there is something out there greater than ourselves. It’s another place, more magical than this one, and it will offer me a chance to continue. That is why I do not fear death. It is also why I fear living the life that I do not want, aimlessly in a trance, getting caught up in the meaningless dribble of saliva that falls from swollen tongues. I do not need to be laying on my deathbed one day and having regrets. Instead, I want to look at the few that have come to say goodbye and bid them a loving farewell, thanking them for being a part of my life, walking a few paths with me, and as I fade, I want them to smile upon me, knowing that there lies a man before them that did what Sinatra sang about, and did it “My way.” It’s all I can ask for, to never let myself down by living now, capturing the scenery of a life that is full of color and darkness. It is full of joy and pain, as life should be. Our experiences make us valuable to the heartbeat of existence. We are the arteries that give life to the earth, and therefore we must earn our way.
Many become impaired, shaken, and leave the conversations about death in an abrupt manner. I have experienced this in the past three months. There are many that do not want to discuss death, but they are the same that probably struggle in life. If you have read this far, not bailed out by trying to coddle your emotions, you are with me. You have been walking this journey of grief and all of its wonders hand in hand with a writer, a man, who will lay it all onto a blank page. If this is you, please leave me a message, anything, to tell me that you understand, or at least want to, because we all need to absorb life and drink from its deep wells.

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