“This place is a dream. Only a sleeper considers it real. Then death comes like dawn, and you wake up laughing at what you thought was your grief.”― Rumi

Death is a major part of this life experience.  I love to be around death.  To stare at it in the face. To be with it, to understand it, and even make friends with it as I believe this will help me live more fully ALIVE.  I also enjoy being around death because that line between “alive” and “dead” is so ridiculously blurred in that moment, I feel there is an expansion of a person’s spirit.  I feel the spirits of all people who are around this human about to transition.  I feel the enormity of love saturating this physical reality.  I also feel the several realities that are awaiting us beyond our death experience…. I like to be close to that blurred line because I feel it might help me better understand these realities and how to navigate them better, more fully, more openly.  To dance with death as I dance in life.

So I was visiting my hospice patient.  Nothing says ‘starring death in the face’ like sitting next to human beings who are about to die.  Who KNOW they are about to die.  And it hit me:

We need to learn to let go.

We need to learn to let go of each other.

We need to learn that death is a precious, chosen moment.

We need to learn  and accept that there IS life after death,

We need to experience that death is like taking off a tight shoe.

We need to learn to soften ourselves before our death.

We need to learn that nothing is really lost.

We need to learn to let go of the tight hold on our friends and family who have passed, and allow them to express themselves to us in the larger perspective that they are now.

We need to change our language around death.

IE: we need to stop associating death with sadness and loss and grief.

(it’s okay if you are sad and grieve at first, but also to understand that person is with you now more than ever).

We need to learn to open to who that being is after physical death.

We need to celebrate life.

We need to celebrate death.

We need to allow people to die with their dignity and respect.

We need to understand DEATH at ALL ages, in all ways, in all shapes is allowable and is always due to that individuals CHOICE.<3