A dear friend of mine walked into the emergency room July 2 with a headache and within hours was told he probably had a dozen or so brain tumors. Over the course of the next week those close to him watched in shock and sadness that a once vibrant life was told he may only have a fraction of time left. It is in these moments that we realize how precious life is as it becomes more fragile: the sweetness of a breeze or the brilliant green of an insect seem much more than they did before.
And time has changed as well. Time and opportunity felt endless just the other day and now, suddenly, it feels meteoric. Before I felt I had unbounded time to repair, to do that thing I have been meaning to, to be with those I love, but now I realize I do not know if I will have that time. Everything becomes clear that everything is uncertain. And, for my friend, he wondered if he wasted one of his last days, one of 14, or 30, or... To watch the clock tick so closely could be quite painful.
I waste so many days. I forget how precious they are; sometimes I just want the day to be over. I forget that it may be only one of a few remaining.
We don’t seem able to live in this acute state for long. I have witnessed this increased intensity and fervor many times, most recently with my own diagnosis of breast cancer in October, 2008. Then, as now, everything took on an ardent brilliance. But as the months passed after my own diagnosis, some of that luminosity faded. Not all, but some.
Certainly that moment changed my life, for the better I am lucky to say, but then I had a simple and easy solution. My friend does not. Or maybe it is as easy: do what seems right and best at this moment. I have watched his life open as did mine. He has been vulnerable, transparent, and has received and given love freely. And he has said he is changing; becoming something new.
I believe we die as we live, and so those same fears and inhibitions that troubled our life may haunt our death. I so want my friend to have a good death, to let his own fears fall away so that he can move into his passing with freedom. And for those of us living that we can move into life with that same deliverance.
What is this freedom? As homeopaths we speak of it as a definition of health: to be free from physical pain replaced with a sense of well-being, a freedom from passions replaced with dynamic calmness, and a freedom from selfishness replaced with empathy. For each of us this freedom takes on unique challenges based on who and how we are in the world. And, I think, our life’s work is to face these challenges in order to become more whole and more wholly ourselves.
One of the blessings in my life that resulted from my diagnosis was that I realized I was deeply loved. In part, because this same friend created the first of many healing circles where my friends and colleagues came to tell me they loved me. During one ceremony this friend sang the heart sutra to me: Gate gate, paragate, parasamgate, bodhi svaha. Gone, gone, gone beyond, gone utterly beyond, o what an enlightenment! David created an opportunity to heal a part of myself that needed healing. It was a true gift. I now sing this to him in his last hours.
Death is sitting on his bed, as it is for all of us, but most of us roll over believing we can ignore this patient guest. But I think there is something quite beautiful in holding death’s hand, just as we hold the hand of birth and beginnings. We can turn towards each and say, “I am fully in life now.”
Buddha says, "There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way and not starting." How do we start? How do we step into truth, honesty, beauty, suffering, loss, love and ourselves fully? Most of the time we are living life forgotten, perhaps all we need to do is try to set aside fear, or laziness, or all the other states that paralyze and prevent us from living completely, and take one step further on that road.
