My grandma could die at any moment. The doctor said she wouldn't make it through the day yesterday. But she did. Our current guess is that she is waiting for my uncle to drive up from his home. (a three day drive)
I find it so curious that humans have this capacity to wait for death even when they are totally out of it, in a comma, in pain, and medicine can't figured out why they are still alive. This power to wait for that one person to say goodbye. It stuns me. It happened with both of my grandma's I think. Or at least my mom says so. Zu (I think grams waited for your mom, or at least so says my mom).
For me this waiting shows a beyondness. Something beyond the body's timeline. That the spirit or the soul or the core self has a say in when death happens. How amazing that we all are embodied in such a way. That we all have this beyondness in us. This thing that is more powerful than our bodies attempts to die.
My uncle arrives in two hours. I'll let you know if she waits for him. But right now I think she will.
And if it's a prayer that makes the difference I shall pray that she is able to wait and he arrives before her body wins the battle with her self.
2 comments:
She got to be there and tell her... among other things, tell her her gratitude. I don't imagine it's easy to lose a mother. I know it would rip my heart out. But I believe it would be somewhat easier to know that there is nothing left unsaid, no lingering wish one would have told her this or that or what she meant to you - one more time. I do think often, particularly in protracted illness, you have some degree of choice in when you die. Obviously the people who died on United Flt 93 didn't (for example.) Why some people "win" the right to die in their elder years and others step up as children or young men and women makes no sense to me. For me that speaks more to the randomness of nature than to any method. I think there is a "beyondness" a "something" and in my dreams it's call being "dead" or being "very dead." In my dreams there states of being dead and the transitions in death require the shuffling off of ego. I can only presume (and I have experiences which affirms this) that there are states of being alive too. These senses - touch, taste, smell, etc., wrapped in the package of our flesh - they're a gift for a certain kind of learning (I believe) that can only happen with these gifts - when these gifts are used, explored, pursued. There is a wisdom gained most easily through skin, kisses, music, the scent of flowers. It's odd (and saddening) to think of a day when we wouldn't have use for such wisdom. I believe this playground of earth was intended to be caressed, adored.. I believe our journey is here until it's not anymore. When we leave it, our being commences with new rules, new time tables, new challenges. While no longer of this medium, for some time, I believe we can linger with the living. (Rilke wrote that angel's don't know whether it is the living or the dead that they move among... those lines, in that place, start becoming blurred.) That we can move between worlds for awhile. For some, I believe the process of moving between worlds can begin when they're still alive.. and this eases us into our dying, makes it less unknown, puts us in touch with the state of living that is closer to the state of being dead. I think people who have the most difficult time dying are those who have strong egos, who have a defined and discrete sense of themselves separate from others - all others - those like them, those different. I believe we're going to join a collective where those distinctions only fetter the way to advanced states of being. of being dead.. and thus fetter the way to our becoming in a new realm with new rules. I think despite it all it's a little frightening at first - as most new things are - and we wait for the words, the touch, the kiss goodbye, from those we love to bolster our courage for our next becoming. Growing is such hard work.
my grandma died during the night. I'm leaving for the funeral soon. Thanks for your comment. I love reading how you think... Good stuff. And yes my uncle arrived yesterday and my grandma died that evening. Wow.
Post a Comment