As levees are breaking, a flood comes
Washes away all the rubble
Past indiscretions and stalemates
We are all sailing to the gatesEverybody leaves one day
I know it hurts
Everybody goes away
You will too, I will too(Ghost)
The thing is, everything that lives will leave one day. Death is all around us. Sometimes it goes unnoticed if you live in a metro area. There may be someone dying in the apartment building you live in. There are people dying in the hospital you drive by. There are people who get into unfortunate accidents or are victims of violence. I remember when I lived in L.A., there seemed to be always something in the local news that was nearby where I lived where people died.
Living in a more rural area doesn’t mean death takes a back seat. The road I live on is littered with lives lost, from roadkill to roadside memorials. Almost every day I drive down the road more poor animals fall victim to speeding cars. I hit a deer once, but since I drive slow and I have a Jeep with clearance it actually lived. Sadly I’ve ran into 3 birds though that unexpectedly flew in front of my vehicle.
Basically, if you start to take notice, you will see death more often.
It doesn’t make it any easier to swallow though.
And each year that passes, as we grow older, we are all sailing to the gates.
Death washes everything away, like a flood…
Everything a living being was, everything they did, is also gone at death. Everything is washed away. I think this is why so many of imagine that at the moment of death, our loved one is released from their pain, their regrets, their unfinished businesses … everything.
And the finality of death on the physical plane is reality. That last breath happens and that is that. Mammals, plants, insects … if it lives, it ceases to be at some point in time. If left alone, decay consumes remains. From dust you came, to dust you shall return and all that.
I don’t see this all as morbid. It’s very much part of the experience of living in my opinion. It’s something we all share and all have in common. None of us escape this.
We are all on this shared journey towards the gates of the great beyond.
A reverence for life…
There was a story I saw circulating around the internet about an old Italian free diver named Enzo Maiorca where he and his daughters had been led by a male dolphin to a female dolphin who was giving birth but was caught in a net and they subsequently rescued it. I knew of Enzo but since I question pretty much everything passed around the internet these days I looked into it. It did, in fact, happen. But while looking, I also stumbled on this story:
“It all happened suddenly. I was diving in the shallows not far from the cape that reaches out to the open sea south of the bay of Syracuse. That morning I happened to spear a grouper. A strong and combative grouper. On the bottom a real titanic struggle broke out, between me who wanted to take its life and the grouper who tried to save itself. The grouper was caught in a cavity between two rocks; trying to understand its position, I ran my right hand down the fish’s belly. Its heart was pounding in terror, mad with fear. And with that pulsing of blood I realized that I was killing a living being. Since then my speargun lies like a derelict, an archaeological item, in the dusty basement of my house. That was in 1967.” (Wikipedia)
Such an intimate experience with death can give one a whole different outlook on life. I don’t even kill spiders in my house anymore. I try to catch them in empty paper towel tubes (I close off one end) and get them outside. Those 3 different birds I hit while driving? I pulled over, collected their poor little limp bodies in my gloved hands, placed them off the road and apologized for being the one to unfortunately end their lives.
The preciousness of life and how fast it can come to an end is with me always.
And yes, major people dying in my life, like my spouse, and more recently, my dad, has helped to give me this perspective.
It’s balance in its purest form … life and death. Polar opposites. And one cannot exist without the other.
