The Depth of Death

Death. Its one of those things we never really take the moment to touch bases on. We are taught the birds & the bees & where babies come from, but never where they go when their time is up. Heaven or Hell. Thats always been what I was taught to look forward to, but what if there’s more. What if?

I was never allowed to ask too many questions as a child especially when it came to ideologies & what not.. Google was my best friend. Taught me all I needed to know about every subject under the sun. Funny enough, Google is still a good friend of mine. He even responds now when I say “Hey Google”. The only issue is, even google has a different definition of death than I do. According to Google, Death is “the action or fact of dying or being killed; the end of the life of a person or organism.”

I don’t believe it’s the end at all. Death is the only constant that we have in life. The one thing that we can be sure of. Without death there could be no life. Knowing that brings me peace. Knowing that allows me to love everything fully while I can without having attachment to it. Knowing that one day there will come a moment when it is no longer there. For the moment. The cycle of life is much like the seasons. We are sad when summer ends because of all the fun that we have during that time. No school, fun with friends & family, days at the beach & cooking out on the grill. Who’d want that to end? but doesn’t it bring you peace knowing that summer will return? That it’s not ending, but sort of transforming into something else. For now.

Thats the beauty of life. If it lasted forever where would the fun be in that? Who wants a never ending day at an amusement park? Who wants an ongoing cup of coffee? Who wants a road trip that never ends? No one. Why do we treat life any differently?

I “lost” my grandfather this week. I was at a loss for words. Not because I couldn’t believe it, but because I couldn’t gather the words that would bring him back. Thats what everyone wants anyway. I couldn’t give them that. Today I cried because I couldn’t feel what I thought I was supposed to feel. I can laugh about it now because I actually was trying to THINK about how to FEEL. Silly me. When I was a child, I remember the first funeral I attended. My grandmother grabbed my hand as we walked to view the body. As I stared at the empty home of what was once filled with light & laughter, I thought why are we here? They didn’t even show up for their own funeral. I looked around the room as all of the people I loved filled it with tears. I was drowning. I couldn’t breath. My anxiety was so bad. I thought people were judging me because I wasn’t sad. So many questions flooded my mind. I remember thinking about the saddest thing I could possibly imagine just to shed enough tears to make my eyes red. I said I would never go to another funeral again. It was torture. Fast forward years later, I finally forced myself to go to another one. This time, it was “to be that extra support for your friends” as my mom said. Next thing I know, one turned into two & two became ten. People were dropping like flies. I made a final decision then that I just would not fear death otherwise I knew I’d always live a life in fear knowing that any moment could be my last, or the last of anyone close to me for that matter. Thats not freedom.

And then one day I allowed someone to get close to me, closer than anyone else has ever been. Closer than I had even been to myself honestly. If we got any closer, we would literally be inside of each other…

I guess you can say, we are pretty close.

For the first time in my life, I started having mixed feelings about death. It no longer was a stranger who I had heard stories about, it became something that lingered in the depths of my mind. I would find myself checking to see if he was still breathing in the middle of the night. I held my finger up to his nose & if I couldn’t feel anything I would literally wake him from his sleep just to make sure he was alright. I soon realized that wasn’t rational. But I also began to understand what others have felt for so long.

I hadn’t done that in a while. Until a few nights ago. Which also happened to be around the time my grandfather passed away. I can’t say I know how it feels to lose a loved one, I can only give my perspective on what I feel. We all feel differently. But one thing I’m sure of is that when the summer fades into fall, no one wants to be wishing that they had spent it differently. Enjoy your time with your love ones while we are here together & when the day comes that there is no more breath left in their bodies, reflect & be grateful that we got the chance to love someone so special & now they are moving on to touch the lives of someone else…

Until You Meet Again.