Remembering a Smile

A friend is crossing the veil today...and the Old Ones will welcome one of their own, a bright smile and beautiful spirit. 


Friend, father, husband, brother, son...Kelly will be remembered with love.

My eyes look to the west tonight...rest well, friend...well done.

Kelly's death is a stark reminder of just how thin and fragile is the line between death and life. We go about our lives each day as though tomorrow, next week, next year were a given. How could it not be so? To live, to participate fully in the world requires that we assume that our next breath will follow, that our heart will continue to beat steadily, that tomorrow will see us rise sleepily and start another day.

And yet we know that there are no guarantees. The next heart beat, the next second, is not a given. All that is sure is that our lives in this body will end.

We talk about the sanctity of life and take vast measures to preserve life while, all the while, our bodies are surely preparing for that life to end. As Pagans, we embrace the physical as part and parcel of the spiritual; there is no difference. We don't view our life on Earth as a trial to be endured until we reach heaven. Life is full and rich and complete right here. But it seems to me that we fall short of fully embracing this physical experience because we still haven't come to terms with death and dying.

As I wrote that last sentence, I caught myself thinking, "Who can possibly hope to come to terms with death? Dying isn't natural."  I recognize that thought as a carryover from my Christian background. In the Christian mythos, death entered the world through sin and disobedience. Before the first man and woman disobeyed Jehovah, they were destined to live forever. From that perspective, death is not a natural part of living and accepting it as such makes no sense.

But I don't subscribe to that mythos. When I look around me, everything in nature tells me that death is, indeed, a part of life...that we enter the world, grow, spread seed and set fruit, and finally slow down and die. And in all the natural world, we seem to be the only ones who treat death and the process of dying as we do. We rarely even speak the words...die, died, dead. We say "passed away," "crossed over," "left this earthly plane." We celebrate birth, idolize youth, make heroes of our adults, hide or hide from our elders, and shun death.

There is a gap in our studies, in our liturgy, our literature, and our world view. To embrace the physical life we need to embrace all of that life, including how it will end. Death has been shortchanged in our culture and in our teaching. We need to learn to look sickness, aging, and death in the eye, to meet it as squarely and with as much acceptance as meet conception and birth, to sit comfortably in the presence of our own mortality.

There are few books written from a Pagan perspective that deal directly with death and dying. I know one, The Pagan Book of Living and Dying by Starhawk, and I highly recommend it. I'd be very interested in any other recommendations you might make. ADDED 10/6/09: I neglected to mention another book, More than Meets the Eye by Yvonne Perry.  Yvonne's book is filled with stories of contact with those who have died, both from her own experience and that of others.

I'm going to buy a copy of the Starhawk book and donate it to our local Hospice library, and I'm going to make a point to do more writing and work on my relationship with life from beginning all the way to and through the end. I invite you to join me.

My eyes look to the west...

...to the crossing of Madelyn Dunham...and the sad, human drama of Barack Obama's loss. I have a candle burning for all who loved Madelyn Dunham, and particularly for Barack and Michelle Obama. The weight of such a loss and the fatigue of a long campaign must seem a burden too big to carry. They will carry it, of course, and I will hold them in my heart as they do. May they find comfort often. I cannot help but believe that Madelyn Dunham will choose to stay around at least until the election results are in. Would you want to miss that? When she's ready, I hope Mrs. Dunham crosses gently and peacefully to whatever awaits her.

Our eyes look to the west today...sail smoothly and rest well, dear lady. Well done.

And soon, a parting...

I learned tonight that my Aunt Louise, my father's oldest sibling and a woman I love very dearly, had a massive stroke and isn't expected to survive. She will turn 89 if she lives to her birthday, just a few weeks away, but I doubt that she will make it that far.

Aunt Louise and I didn't get to spend much time together; she's lived for as long as I can remember in Gig Harbor, Washington, near Seattle. Yet that tiny little woman - all 5 feet or so of her - is very close to my heart. She is wonderfully warm, smart, funny, open-minded, loving, and lives every moment of her life fully. Whenever I talk with her, she says, "I am so grateful for my life. I have a wonderful family that take care of me and would do anything for me. I have many, many friends who range in age from 2 months to 90 years, and I love them all. I have had a good marriage to a man I love dearly. I am blessed." She loved my father very much, and he loved her. They were closer than any of the other children in that big family. My dad loved Uncle Jim, too. Uncle Jim died several years ago, and my father cried like a baby when heard the news.

My eyes look to the west tonight. The Old Ones will soon welcome one of their own. Rest well, Aunt Louise. Well done.