If death were a person (like me or you)

As we struggle to find a meeting place in this contentious world, we might land on our own mortality.

Death does not discriminate.

We’re all here for just a short time and, whether we’re yanked suddenly from an ordinary day or released gratefully from a long and painful struggle, we all have to leave.

That is the universal truth.

So, as Mary Oliver asks us, “What is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”

Will you rise each morning with gratitude for the opportunities that lie ahead? Will your thank you note be the daily effort you make to leave the world a little better than you found it?

Will you tune out ubiquitous and frightening noise so you can listen to your heart. And, having heard that message, will you bravely take a stand?

Death does not discriminate but, as poets and prophets so eloquently convey, it can liberate.

The finiteness of our days gives them meaning. Their fragility can be our battle cry.

You can make a difference while you’re here. There’s still time.

Let’s go!

P.S. Should you find yourself paralyzed, rather than galvanized, by the prospect of death, I offer you this lovely poem. My daughter Katherine introduced me to the writings of Andrea Gibson, Colorado’s poet laureate, whose words are so incredibly profound. You might also find comfort in Wisconsin’s own poet laureate, Ellen Kort, and her poem “If death were a woman.” and in Peridot’s song, “Everything you fear”.

Love Letter from the Afterlife

By Andrea Gibson

My love, I was so wrong. Dying is the opposite of leaving. When I left my body, I did not go away. That portal of light was not a portal to elsewhere, but a portal to here. I am more here than I ever was before. I am more with you than I ever could have imagined. So close you look past me when wondering where I am. It’s Ok. I know that to be human is to be farsighted. But feel me now, walking the chambers of your heart, pressing my palms to the soft walls of your living. Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in those we love while they are still alive? Ask me the altitude of heaven, and I will answer, “How tall are you?” In my back pocket is a love note with every word you wish you’d said. At night I sit ecstatic at the loom weaving forgiveness into our worldly regrets. All day I listen to the radio of your memories. Yes, I know every secret you thought too dark to tell me, and love you more for everything you feared might make me love you less. When you cry I guide your tears toward the garden of kisses I once planted on your cheek, so you know they are all perennials. Forgive me, for not being able to weep with you. One day you will understand. One day you will know why I read the poetry of your grief to those waiting to be born, and they are all the more excited. There is nothing I want for now that we are so close I open the curtain of your eyelids with my own smile every morning. I wish you could see the beauty your spirit is right now making of your pain, your deep seated fears playing musical chairs, laughing about how real they are not. My love, I want to sing it through the rafters of your bones, Dying is the opposite of leaving. I want to echo it through the corridor of your temples, I am more with you than I ever was before.  Do you understand? It was me who beckoned the stranger who caught you in her arms when you forgot not to order for two at the coffee shop. It was me who was up all night gathering sunflowers into your chest the last day you feared you would never again wake up feeling lighthearted. I know it’s hard to believe, but I promise it’s the truth. I promise one day you will say it too– I can’t believe I ever thought I could lose you.

If Death Were a Woman

by Ellen Kort

I’d want her to come for me smelling of cinnamon
wearing bright cotton purple maybe hot pink

a red bandana in her hair She’d bring
good coffee papaya juice bouquet of sea grass

saltine crackers and a lottery ticket We’d dip
our fingers into moist pouches of lady’s slippers

crouch down to see how cabbages feel when wind
bumps against them in the garden We’d walk

through Martin’s woods find the old house
its crumbling foundation strung with honeysuckle vines

and in the front yard a surprise jonquils
turning the air yellow glistening and ripe

still blooming for a gardener long gone
We’d head for the beach wearing strings of shells

around our left ankles laugh at their ticking
sounds the measured beat that comes with dancing

on hard-packed sand the applause of ocean and gulls
She’d play ocarina songs to a moon almost full

and I’d sing off-key We’d glide and swoop
become confetti of leaf fall all wings

floating on small whirlwinds never once dreading
the heart-silenced drop And when it was time

she would not bathe me Instead we’d scrub the porch
pour leftover water on flowers stand a long time

in sun and silence then holding hands
we’d pose for pictures in the last light.

And, for further inspiration, here’s a song that ran through my head all day yesterday as I thought about this post. It celebrates whispered encouragement from Hillary Reynolds’ mom, my friend Trina Reynolds, who passed away in 2011.

I couldn’t think of an appropriate image for this post, so I’m using this one. Today is the anniversary of my dad’s death and this is a picture from his last Father’s Day with us. Those little peanuts in his arms are all grown up now, one has a peanut of his own, and they have two more siblings and six cousins who were all waiting in the wings on this day. “Why did no one tell us that to die is to be reincarnated in the ones we love while they are still alive?”