"Intimations On Mortality"

I went to visit a friend who has been around this life quite a bit long than I. She recently underwent a serious surgery. She has lost quite a bit of vitality, still listens hard and has as strong will. My evening with her and with her being nearer to her transition than I'd ever seen her ended on a prayer of sorts. The drive home gave my thoughts time to clarify around the idea of our endings, not just hers.

As I left, I said, "What I hope for you is that you have a long, long, long, healthy life, and, when your time comes that you just..." I made a sign with my forearm and hand, indicating that I meant just passing. She seemed surprised and said, "That is what we all want."

On the way home I began thinking about that idea in reference to myself. That is, of course, exactly what I want too. The truth, as I have seen it several times now, is  that, no matter what a person has gone through in  final years, months, weeks, days, minutes before "THE MOMENT," for the most part, their moment of passing is usually an uneventful, almost indistinguishable moment from any other mundane one in life. It quickly reveals itself as something other than that because it last much longer than any other moment. Their peace is the graphic, indisputable evidence that the time has arrived for time to end.

No matter what happens to the spirit of the departed one, they have left this life and will never know it again. Even if there is such a thing a reincarnation, they will not come back to then. Then is gone.

This, the second most important moment in our life, is nothing more than a gentle letting go and moving on. It is a leaving of the form our spirit knew for as long as they were joined. The manner of that relationship dictates the emotion that we ultimately attach to that separation. Love Begats Love. Enmity Begats Enmity. So it goes for everything forever.

What is so hopeful to me is that we become so much closer to someone as the possibility of our or their leaving becomes more real. It is often referred to as "a shame" because we didn't achieve that degree of caring and intimacy for all of those years that we shared prior to that possibility. I always thought so, too.

I don't think that way anymore. Now, I see all of life as building to that moment. That moment and the build-up to it are such important periods of our lives. They deserve to be experienced on a different, deeper level than what we experience in day to day association, even with loved ones. The final stage of being here is the culmination of all those other days and moments.

Rejoice in them. We have earned every atom of intimate energy that passes between us. We deserve every nano second of the experience. Relish it. It is life-shared's final statement to us and about us.