It is coming to all of us, although most of us wander blindly through our lives as if we were immortal but our bodies will certainly decay and die. That’s the two certainties of life – death and taxes. The point is how do we face it?
I’ve been at many deathbeds in my time. I reverence beginnings and endings. I have delivered six babies and recently had the privilege of my seventh, my first Australian baby. The deathbeds I have attended are not because I am a rubbish medical herbalist but because I have been in practice so long now, 35 years and counting that many of my patients that began with me in their 50’s and 60’s when I first started have become my friends and request my support as they pass over. It has been a privilege but some of it has been painful.
It was Carl Jung who observed the only people that can’t be helped are those with no belief system. That’s when the pain comes in. So much regret on people’s lips. Many about not taking life by the throat and really enjoying every moment of it, about not loving enough, giving enough, risking enough, speaking up, telling the truth, forgiving, laughing, plunging in.
So I remind my patients and my friends that nobody ever went to their deathbed wishing they had spent more time in the office or left more money in the bank. Or no-one I have ever met.
It’s the not being able to say goodbye which is the hardest. I was at a railway station once when a potential passenger threw themselves under the incoming train. Unfortunately he severed one leg off and the other had to be amputated later but he failed to kill himself. He had passed out and was unconscious but what was surprised me was the rage the train crew and passengers expressed. Then I understood. They were not raging at him so much as at the shocking reminder of their own impending deaths. Whenever they might be. Dylan Thomas raging at the dying of the light.
Death and birth have become hospitalized, sanitized and shut away. In this respect we have traveled a very long way from the 19th century and part of the reason we have done so is because we are so afraid of the experience. Birth and death are as much part of life as everything in-between and sometimes they may actually be the best part. Most of the people I know deny themselves the experience of watching their loved ones and friends die and maybe this is where the false sense of immortality comes in. I’d go further and say maybe it even blocks truly valuing life itself. Beginnings and endings.
If we could bring birth and death back into our homes where they belong we would all appreciate the fragility and shortness of life more and its huge treasures. We would live life to the fullest and not hold back, dare to celebrate more, forgive more readily, love more fervently, because we would be more present to the fact that we do not live forever.
If we witnessed more birthing and dying we would have more respect and reverence for all life. We would be less inclined to kill each other and abuse the gifts the earth sustains us with and more inclined to celebrate everyday, love every moment, life to our fullest potential. If this is done whole heartedly to its fullest potential when the day comes as a good day to die, as the Cree Indian used to say, it would indeed be a good day, a perfect day, to do just that, and go in peace.
