A Hard Goodbye
(Dedicated to Zoe)
One of my dearest friends told me today on Valentines Day that her grandmother of 96 is passing away, slowly and consciously she wants to depart this world.
The following is my reply to
her grief and if any of you are faced in the future with a similar situation I
can only hope this may help.
My dear friend,
My heart aches for your grief, as I can understand some of the emotions you may be experiencing as I too have lost those very near and dear to me due to the inevitable progression of time and age.
I remember speaking with Nanny (my Italian grandmother), the most loving person in my memory, always giving even when she went without, always there for my brother and I, always looking out for us and spending endless hours with us so that we never had time to feel on our own or forgotten as we were always surrounded by a blanket of love and affection.
She was in her twilight years and her quality of life had understandably diminished, she was an active person full of health and life, but over the years, the joints wear out, the muscles shrink and near the end she could not catch her breath, could not see well, get around easily and was always in pain.
She would tell me that she was tired, so very tired all the time. She told me she was tired of the pain, tired of the health problems, tired of watching most of those she had grown up with buried, but mostly she was tired of waiting until she could be with the man she loved. Her husband of 50+ years, her only husband, the only man that was ever in her life whose love, respect and admiration filled her heart had passed on from age related problems more than a decade ago. It was not just that she was not able to survive longer but she no longer had the will to survive without the thing that had given her hope, pride and so much love for all of her adult life.
All her life Nanny gave her family and friends her full measure of love and commitment, all her life she made everyone in her world feel her love and compassion, so when it was time to stop waiting, time to go gently into that good night, so to speak, she had no hesitations, not remorse of things not said to others, not lose ends to tie up to let her loved ones know that she cares for them as this magnificent vestal of love and family values had spent her entire lifetime letting all in her world be enriched by her presence.
It is perfectly natural for you to want to delay the departure of one you love; it is a testament to the size of your heart and your level of affection for a loved one. It is one the things that draws others to you, that makes you so loved by others that you have the capacity to love that deeply that you will actually suffer at the loss of a loved one who is not yet gone.
It was very hard for me personally to understand that a person would just give up and quit on life when those around them wanted them to fight. It took me many years to actually understand how hard it must have been to continue to live on when most of what you know and love is gone and those you may have loved the most deeply are now on the other side so to speak waiting for you.
My head tells me there is no after life, there is no great beyond, that life is what you make it and death is but the final act of a life played out. This is why I believe in giving of yourself to those you love and helping others when you can to ease their sorrow.
My heart tells me a Creator with both unimaginable power and benevolence, who has created all we see, all we know and all we can imagine, would likewise be capable and generous to also provide a way for our spirits to exist even after our Earth bound bodies cease to function. If this being the case than it is natural to assume that those spirits would collect in a central location and search out those fellow spirits that were long ago separated in life.
It is unproven what happens after death, all we can know is what happens in life and while it is a tragedy when an unexpected unanticipated event takes a loved one before they are ready and before they have lived a full life, it is likewise Natural when one who has lived a full life and completed their final wishes and said their final goodbyes chooses to depart from this world and move on to the next.
Life is so very precious, because it is fleeting. It is better to celebrate the success of a well lived life and cherish the time you had with the ones you love, then to mourn the inevitable closure on all our mortal lives.
Which is why my love when I finally get to meet you I will hug you so tightly it might hurt, as in that moment I will be as close to your heart, as I can get, as it is that part of you, that fountain of your love and compassion that has always drawn me too you.
Learn to accept death as the
price we must all pay to celebrate life.