We're preparing now to lay my grandmother to rest. She passed away.
As you may have read in my last blog (below), she wasn't living much of a life for the last few years.
I was lucky enough to have said a beautiful and heartfelt good-bye to her a few days before she died.
Now that I'm going through photos and trying to get a nice tribute going for her memorial, I realize more and more how cyclical life is.
At first, the pain and tears came from thinking about how finite life is. Death is so permanent and heavy. It hurt so bad. I'll never get her back. I'll never, ever get to see her or her smile again. Memories of the vibrant days would flood into my head and tears would come crashing down my cheek. Then, minutes later, it would all stop and I'd be fine. That cycle kept happening over and over...and still sometimes happens over a week later.
But after the first few days of pain started to subside a little, I thought about it in a different way.
It's actually not final. Think about all the babies there are in your family right now. Think about all the elderly or ageing people there are in your family right now. It's a constant cycle of birth and death.
It's never too much of one or the other. It's a cycle that will never end and the urge to try to stop or delay it, only makes it harder to let go.
I've learned to enjoy each minute with the living a little more. I've learned to stop, breathe and take a step back sometimes. Things become amazingly clear when you walk away and look at things from the outside in.
I hope and pray this enlightenment will last and not be a fleeting moment of awakening in between the tears and harsh reality of losing a loved one.
In the mean time, hold your babies a little longer, kiss your spouse with intention and tell your family you love them for no reason, even if you don't like them very much.
Because the circle of life keeps moving whether you're ready for it or not. And like your birth, you won't remember your death...all we have is the space in between. So enjoy it.