IS THE GRIM REAPER REALLY GRIM?

Death is inevitable.  This is something we deny, hide from, think of as failure and pretend will never happen to us.  We pump embalming fluid into the bodies our dead, seal them in expensive air-tight satin filled boxes and pretend that they will be preserved as we remember them forever.

We barely mourn because we don’t have permission to fully express our grief without being shushed, or told they’re in a ‘better place’ or that they’re not dead, just transformed. Well fine. The dead may be alive elsewhere (and I'm fairly sure that they are), but their warm flesh will forever be missing from our arms once they have shrugged off their bodies. Mourning is healthy natural, and useful.  We may find ourselves kinder, more attentive and more present to the living if we face the reality that everyone we know will leave us someday- unless of course, we leave them first. Death reminds us to Live- and to value and appreciate our loved ones today.

We live in a culture in which death is seen as  ‘failure’, rather than as a passage that we attend to with intention and the fullness of our presence.  We have made Death out to be a villain, the Bad Guy.  The Grim Reaper. Yet  Hospice workers, those who live in the presence of Death constantly are some of the happiest,  most aware people I have ever known. 

My life has been framed by death. My father was an embalmer and funeral director, so I had a front row seat when it came to all that goes into making a body ready for burial, not to mention living upstairs from the host of grieving people and the slow parade of  dead that passed through the funeral home.  I have had plenty of firsthand, experience also- starting with my Mother who died suddenly just after I’d turned 14 and my Dad who  died when I was 21.  

Death is not evil and is certainly not failure.  If we allow ourselves to truly consider and contemplate our own deaths, something wonderful and life affirming happens.  We make better choices, we spend time on what is important, we stop sweating the small stuff, we give up fighting over petty grievances…we grow up. People who have experienced  a brush with death or the experience of losing many loved ones, often develop a kinship with death. One in which Death is a Guide, Teacher and Ally rather than a Grim Reaper to be feared and avoided.

Death, when he comes for me, will not be Grim. He will be beautiful and shining, and he will hold open a magnificent door, and hold out his hand to guide me across to that lovely place where I will be welcomed and celebrated by those who have gone before me. And I will smile at him and take his hand. In the meantime, I intend to Live and Love with every ounce of my being, I will play hard and enjoy all the wonders life offers, so than when Death comes, I will have no regrets.

 

 

 

Those who attend to the dying know that there is something mysterious and magnificent happening as we approach death. Here is  an article & a video, if you wish to deepen your appreciation of this subject. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/02/health/dreams-dying-deathbed-interpretation-delirium.html?_r=0 

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbnBe-vXGQM     TedX talk